


Protection Detail

by Whitsie



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Crossover, Cultural Differences, Everyone Has Issues, Homophobic Language/Opinions, M/M, Master of Death Harry Potter, Past Child Abuse, Period-Typical Homophobia, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-04-28
Updated: 2017-06-05
Packaged: 2018-03-26 04:15:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 16
Words: 51,851
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3836680
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Whitsie/pseuds/Whitsie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dealing with Harry Potter was always guaranteed to leave Nick Fury with a headache and a worldwide crisis to deal with.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by J.K Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Warner Bros, Bloomsbury, as well as Marvel and all its associates. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

It was really only a few months after Loki had invaded New York. Things had mostly been calm for Natasha and the rest of the Avengers, well, what they now thought of as calm after stopping an alien invasion. There had been a few Loki wannabe's who had attacked different members of the team as they went about the city, some slightly odder than normal criminals who they had been called in to deal with, and that one time in north Washington that no one wanted to talk about.

They were all living in Stark tower, or Avengers tower as they now called it. Banner had been taken home by Stark immediately, after he realised that the man had no where to stay, except for perhaps his place in Calcutta, that Stark had declared, "not fit for a super-hero, let alone a saviour of the world". Rogers had been next. He had also had no where to stay, but it had taken him some time to get over his pride and ask Stark if he could move in. It probably didn't help that most of the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents came up to him on a daily basis to ask for his autograph, an opportunity to spar with him, or an invitation into his bed. Thor had taken Loki back to Asgard, but had come back only a month later, in a thunderstorm of epic proportions, pissed off at something, but refusing to talk about it. They still didn't know what was wrong, but it seemed like he had mostly gotten over it. Natasha and Clint had been the last to move in. They had been dropping in more and more frequently to visit one or all members of the team, and one day, when they had arrived, Stark had told them that he had allocated them both a room and that J.A.R.V.I.S. would let them in whenever they arrived.

Fury wasn't officially aware that the entire team had moved into one building, but there were few things that the man missed, and this was unlikely to be one of them. He had even started to call J.A.R.V.I.S whenever he wanted to contact any of the Avengers.

The team (mainly Stark) had decided that they would go out for dinner to celebrate Thor's birthday. It wasn't really his birthday, but the Asgardian and Earth calendars didn't exactly match up, so Stark had chosen a day and declared it Thor's birthday. Banner had managed to rein in Stark's enthusiasm, so they hadn't ended up in some swanky restaurant with those tiny portions marooned in massive white plates. Natasha was sure that if this had happened, they would have had to order the entire menu to satisfy the appetites of Thor, Rogers and Clint combined. They had instead gone to an out of the way Italian restaurant with serving sizes of epic proportions, and while that had gotten some sideways glances from the other diners, and a couple of sneakily (so they thought) taken photo's, it had been a mostly peaceful night.

They had all slowly made their way back to the tower, deciding to walk as it was only a couple of blocks. Stark and Rogers were bickering again, while Clint was explaining the things that Thor pointed out, with Banner jumping in occasionally to help. Natasha had walked slightly behind them all, looking out for possible threats, because, well, someone had to.

They had all piled into the lift, chattering and laughing, when J.A.R.V.I.S. had spoken up,

"Sir, there appears to be someone in the penthouse."

Silence had filled the elevator for a moment, before Stark had spoken up,

"Pardon J.A.R.V.I.S., I must of misheard you. I swear you just said that there was someone in my tower, and I didn't know about it until now."

"He had some way of blocking me from contacting you, and so I had to wait until you entered the building, sir"

All the members of the team stiffened at this, immediately falling into battle-mode, prepared for anything.

"How did he get in J.A.R.V.I.S.? What is he doing now?" Rogers asked.

"He isn't doing anything at the moment, just sitting on a couch drinking water out a bottle he brought with him. As for how he got in… " If J.A.R.V.I.S. wasn't a robot, then Natasha would have sworn that he sounded slightly confused "… I'm not exactly sure, there is a glitch in my memory, one minute he isn't there, then I essentially black out, and when I come back, there he is. I am not sure how he did it, but I was only out for a maximum of a minute, so he should not have had enough time to get in."

The team all exchanged wary glances. They would have talked, except the lift arrived at the top floor and they all piled out, all eyes immediately going the person sitting on the couch, facing away from them, spreading out to give him no option of escape.

They stood there for a moment, Natasha categorising his features. Black hair, green eyes, short, fairly young, odd scar on his forehead. This last observation brought Natasha up short, and in the second since she had first laid eyes on the man she recognised who he was, and looked over at Clint, whose panicked eyes met hers.

There sitting on Stark's couch was the most dangerous man alive. Harry Potter.

* * *

 

Harry sat on the couch patiently, quietly amused as he considered the tizzy that the Avengers must all be in in the elevator as they were informed by Tony Stark's AI that there was someone in his apartment. He was looking forward to this meeting. He had spent the last few years off the grid, so to speak, residing solely in the Wizarding World, and now that he had re-entered the Muggle World, there was someone he needed to talk to .

The lift opened and the team spread out. Tall, blond Steve Rogers, who had survived seventy years in a giant ice cube. Handsome and wealthy Tony Stark, who was only kept alive by a piece of machinery in his chest. Calm, quiet Bruce Banner, who really should have died from exposure to that much gamma radiation. Thor, the Asgardian hammer-wielding demi-god and of course the two S.H.I.E.L.D agents, Clint Barton and Natasha Romanoff who were at the moment staring at each other in panic, clearly recognising him.

Romanoff and Barton pulled them selves together remarkably quickly, before Romanoff announced

"Don't attack him. We need to call Fury."

"Don't attack him? Why the hell not. He is sitting on my couch, in my apartment. I have the best security system in the world. I'll attack him if I fucking want to." Stark burst out.

"As much as I hate to say it, I agree with Tony. We don't know what he is doing here. We should apprehend him and question him." Rogers spoke with an tone of voice Harry was intimately familiar with, that of a leader expecting everyone to listen to him and do what he said.

"That wouldn't be a good idea. We wouldn't win." This time Barton tried to be the voice of reason.

"Wouldn't win? Why not." At Banners enquiry Harry snorted.

He smiled widely as the team turned to face him, not expecting him to have made a sound. "Six on one isn't the worst odds I have been up against. And I'm not dead yet. You haven't got a hope of beating me."

"Yeah right." Stark scoffed. "We are literally super heroes and we have a god on our side. You're clearly delusional."

Everyone in the room turned to face Thor who had been oddly silent throughout the confrontation. The team's eyes widened as they saw him standing stiffly, clearly having some sort of internal conflict, although they had no idea what about.

Harry spoke up, "There is no point in trying to fight it Son of Odin, you couldn't before and you can't now."

Thor snarled, and glared at Harry before taking three jerky steps toward him. He lay Mjolnir down on the ground, before falling to his knee's and, taking Harry's hand, kissing the air above his ring.

Harry stood with a mocking smile on his face, looking at the rest of the team who were staring in shock, savouring the moment for slightly longer than was necessary before informing Thor that he could rise.

Thor stood up swiftly, picking up his hammer and crossing to the other side of the room, glaring.

"What the FUCK was that?" Stark practically shouted, crossing over to stand in front of Harry, ignoring the two S.H.I.E.L.D. agents in the room who tried to hold him back.

"What makes you think I'm going to tell you. Ask your teammate if you want to know."

"Just leave it Stark. Mr Potter, may I ask you what you are doing her. "

Harry smiled thinly at Agent Romanoff, "Make the call to your boss that you so desperately want to make. Tell him I want to talk."

Romanoff, without turning away from him, pulled out her phone and pressed a button, bringing the phone up to her ear.

"Sir. Something… unexpected has happened…. Mr Potter is sitting in Stark's living room… Yes sir…. I don't know sir… yes sir… it doesn't look like he is going anywhere… We can wait sir… yes sir… good bye.

"He will be here in an hour."

"That's all well and good, but I want to know what that thing was before. Want to enlighten us big guy?"

"I will not tell you. It is shameful."

"Shameful?" Harry's voice asked "Nothing shameful in following your magic's instincts. I'm surprised you lasted so long."

"You have no right to do what you did. You play at God, try to be life and death at the same time. It is unnatural." Thor spat.

It was odd for the Avengers to see Thor so hostile. They had never really seen this side of him. Even in battle he was just angry, but here he was clearly trying to express every ounce of disgust possible.

"I would have thought over a thousand years of life would give you better insults, Son of Odin. I've been called unnatural since my childhood. My aunt took me to be exorcised when I was eight. Either try harder or shut up. I would shut up if I were you, because if you don't I'll make you."

Harry smirked as Thor fell silent. He proceeded to ignore any of the Avengers questions after that, content to sit on the couch and wait for Nick Fury to arrive. They had some things to discuss.

* * *

 

Nick Fury could honestly say that he had not expected his month to get any worse. Admittedly in his line of work he didn't exactly have good days, but July had already been worse than usual. A new president had been elected who was inordinately interested in the workings of S.H.I.E.L.D. and how they operated. It had been a nightmare to manage to inform the President of what was going on without going into too much detail, and keeping some of their more… interesting projects hidden. The Avengers had all moved into Stark Tower, without officially informing him, so he had needed to keep track of what was going on, to ensure that they didn't blow themselves up, without looking like he knew they were all there. The Council had informed him that he needed to up his recruitment numbers, and that entire process had taken stupid amounts of paperwork to complete. And finally every single one of his contacts in the Wizarding World had disappeared without a trace, as well as some of his wizard and witch agents, and every attempt to find new ones had failed.

And so when Nick Fury had received the call from Agent Romanoff to inform him that Harry Potter was sitting on Stark's couch, he had felt perfectly justified in indulging in some choice swearwords to express his ire.

Dealing with Harry Potter was always guaranteed to leave him with a headache and a worldwide crisis to deal with. It was with a resigned attitude that Fury got into the lift to take him up to the top floor.

Potter had first been approached by S.H.I.E.L.D. at age nineteen, a few months after he had finished his 'eighth year' at Hogwarts. He had been offered a deal similar to Starks; working with S.H.I.E.L.D. as a consultant, and someone to be called in on particularly difficult jobs. Fury's offer had been rebuffed and he had walked away without any hair.

It still hadn't grown back.

It was only a few years after that, after Potter had been fast tracked through the British Auror training program, that he had been put on S.H.I.E.L.D.'s watch list, as someone who, while not a definite threat, was certainly someone to keep track of. By age 25, and two subsequent offers by S.H.I.E.L.D., Potter had been named the most dangerous man in the world, among those in the know, because of a combination of his training, political weight, sheer magical power and disregard for morals and laws.

The worst thing was, as much as Fury hated to admit it, Harry Potter's file was by no means complete. While his Hogwarts years were documented in wizarding history books, Fury was sure that there were things that had been left out in his recounting of events, and Weasley and Granger certainly weren't talking. There was almost definitely something that Potter was leaving out of his detailing of the 'Golden Trio's Horcrux Hunt', and the difficulty they had in finding and destroying all six.

Admittedly there were some things that were specifically kept out of Potter's file, like the talk about the Deathly Hallows, as Fury didn't want that information getting into anyone's hands, and considering the ease with which Stark hacked into their files whenever he wanted, Fury figured that was a good decision to make.

The lift doors opened revealing the Avengers sitting on one side of the room facing towards the lift, and Potter sitting facing away from him.

Potter, clearly having heard the door open, stood up and walked around the couch, walking towards him with his hand out.

Fury was unable to bring his hand up to shake however, as standing in front of him was a seventeen year old Potter.

* * *

 

Harry heard the lift opening behind him, and stood up to greet Fury.

He walked around the couch with his hand extended for Fury to shake, but stopped when he saw Fury's expression.

"That's not a good look on you Fury. Looking surprised kinda ruins that whole all knowing thing you have going." Harry smiled when he heard Stark snort from behind him. "Seriously though. What has you so surprised?"

"Potter. You're thirty five. Just- I don't- What the fuck?!"

Harry was slightly shocked as he realised what Fury was talking about. He was so used to the Wizarding World knowing that he didn't age, that he had forgotten that people in the muggle world didn't know.

"Yes I am. I also don't age. Expect me to be around for much  _much_  longer Fury."

"Don't age?  _Don't age_? Fuck. Is that why you are here?"

"No Nick. I'm here to tell you why you are missing every single one of your wizarding agents, and why the population of the world is half a billion people smaller."

Harry smiled as Fury immediately turned around, walked over to Stark's drinks cabinet, and poured himself a glass of scotch.

"Little bit early for alcohol isn't it?"

"It's your fault Potter. Sit the fuck down and explain. Now."


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry chats with the Avengers. Fury gets a headache.

Harry may have been a respected war veteran by the age of seventeen, an Auror by the time he was nineteen (after only taking two years for the intense training course rather than the usual five) and an internationally respected politician by the age of twenty two, but a pissed off Nick Fury was still something that he wasn't prepared to go against, so he sat down on a couch facing the Avenger's, who had arranged themselves into somewhat of a battle formation.

Fury walked across to sit on a seat that was just off to the side of his vision, making Harry turn to face him, leaving him the only option of sitting uncomfortably in the couch. Harry wasn't prepared to play Fury's game so he drew his wand and levitated the chair, rotated it, then set it down facing Fury.

He laughed internally at the shocked gasp that came from… only Banner. "Do the rest of you actually know what this is?" Harry asked, waving his wand slightly. The rest of the Avengers nodded. "How? I mean, obviously Romanoff and Barton know, they are a part of S.H.I.E.L.D., and Thor obviously knows." Harry ignored the animalistic snarl that emerged from his lips" But the Captain and Stark? How do you two know?"

Fury interjected before any of his team had the chance to answer. "Stark hacks into our database on a regular basis. That the files relating to your world have a higher security clearance than others meant that they were one of the first things that he went after. And Rogers, as a part of his work in dealing with HYDRA, came across some wand wavers. Your Grindlewald was involved in WWII, so it shouldn't be that much of a surprise."

Harry shot Fury a glare for his condescending tone, but let it slide as what he was telling Harry was very interesting. "So only Banner. Can I tell him?" Harry didn't wait for Fury's nod to begin his explanation.

"So, what I just did was magic. With a wand. Because I'm a wizard. There is a whole community of wizards, with shops and schools and a functioning government, that is hidden from your world. Obviously the higher members of your government, like the Queen back in England, and the President here, as well as part of the secret services from each country, know about us, but we have a different set of laws and everything, so that's really just courtesy.

"We are, Mr Banner, an undeniably more powerful race of humans, that your government was right to fear. For all that you out numbered us in the billions, and despite your weaponry, we could have destroyed you, because we have power over your minds and over nature. What are your guns and bombs in the face of the fury of the earth and the ability to make you forget that we even exist or make you submit to our every whim. For you see, while we were able to develop resistance measures against your technology, your technology had not hope in the face of magic. Does that make sense Mr Banner?" Harry had always worried about the power that muggles seem to wield, but had been reassured by the power of the magical world, and more recently, a study that Hermione had carried out that looked into the feasibi,lity of muggles posing a danger to the wizarding race. Her findings had been the same as what he said to Dr Banner. Muggles, while fully capable of killing each other with ease, would have much more difficulty doing the same with wizards, because they had magic.

Harry had always been astounded by the power that wizards wielded, originally purely for the wonder of it all but, more and more as he got older, he had been entranced by the possibilities that magic held and had researched to discover a way to protect the wizarding way of life from muggles, not to protect the wizards as such, as they had never done anything for him, but to separate the two worlds completely, so that he could escape and create a safe haven.

"It does, Mr Potter. Mostly. I would like to ask you more questions later but for now that shall suffice. I do wonder though about your use of the past tense in your description. Is your kind now in danger? Is that why you are here? For our help?"

Harry couldn't help it. He tossed back his head an laughed.  "S-sorry, Mr Banner." Harry choked out, breathing heavily. "I don't mean to offend you. No, that's not why I'm here. I told Fury why I was here not twenty minutes ago."

"You're here to tell me why I don't have any magical agents left, and you hinted that there weren''t any magicals left in the world. Is that right, Potter." Fury replied.

"Yes. "

"What? Did you kill them all. Finally got to caught up in your power trip and massacred your race?"

"Fury." Harry chided. "I am disappointed that you think so little of me. For all that I dislike wizarding culture and my fellow wizards, I would never kill them. No, I've finally done what witches and wizards have been trying to do for centuries. I've hidden the Wizarding World."

"Potter." Fury mimicked Harry's chiding tone. "The Wizarding world has always been hidden. You've had cloaking spells, and wards, and obliviates to see to that for centuries. What are you talking about?"

"No, you see." Harry was too happy to have a chance to explain his success and still riding in the euphoria of his achievement only a week before to have his mood dampened by Fury. "They're hidden. Completely. Both ways. Nothing can get in, and nothing can get out. The wizarding world has truly become the wizarding World."

"How did you manage that, Potter?" Fury asked, curious despite himself. "I thought the magic was impossible. Your world has become too entwined with ours."

"He interfered in the workings of the universe. He did what should only be the realm of gods." Thor interrupted, derisively. "What he did was not possible for humans, by the did it anyway. He is unnatural."

"Aw, Thor. I'm flattered by your high opinion of me. Truly, it means so much to me." Harry cooed.

"Unnatural?" The rest of the Avengers seemed to have been knocked out of their stupor by Thor's words. "I don't know if you have a leg to lean on there, Point Break." Stark drawled. "We're all kinda… unnatural."

"I hate to admit that Stark has a point, but he does." Rogers added. "We all do things that aren't possible for humans. It's why we are called superheroes."

"No. He is more wrong. He is ripping the universe apart." Thor stood up and took a step towards Harry, gripping Mjolnir tightly

"Hey now. I didn't rip anything apart." Harry stood up as well, drawing his wand and holding it facing down, but ready to point at Thor at a moments notice. "And don't pretend that's why you have an issue with me. If you really want to have a go at me, take it up with your niece. It's not like she has a problem with it."

"She can not have a problem with it. You have bound her with your magic." Thor's face was murderous, and a storm had started brewing outside

"Excuse me. I didn't bind anyone. If anything-"

"SHUT UP!" Fury thundered, overpowering any response Thor may have had, clearly irritated that the conversation was getting out of hand, and moving into territory that he had no idea about. "Potter. I presume what you were talking about before relates to Thor's issue with you, so you will, as I said earlier, sit the fuck down and explain."

Harry retook his seat, and took a deep breath. "All right, all right." He considered where to start, taking into consideration that some of the Avengers might not have any idea about his past, or what he was about to talk about, and decided to begin with some basic knowledge.

"So, as you might have gathered from what Fury said before, the Wizarding World has always had ways to hide itself from muggles - that's you non-magical people. We have had magical wards over entrances to our world for centuries which prevent muggles from entering or noticing that the entrances are even there. We've had an enchantment woven over magical creatures like unicorns and dragons and sphinxes for as long as wizards can remember that prevent muggles from seeing them and of course we have also had obliviate -the memory wiping spell, - and a government department that is able to track magic, and whenever it is cast in front of an unaware muggle, an Obliviator is sent out to wipe the memory from their minds.

"It helps that wizarding families, the ones who have been wizards for generations have developed a community hidden within these wards, so that a wizard is able to go their whole life without ever venturing into the muggle world.

"More and more, recently, Obliviators are having to be sent out to deal with muggles who have not only seen magic, but attempted to find its source and tried to film it. Unfortunately for them, magic, by its very nature, interacts with technology negatively and cannot be filmed, or captured on camera, but these muggles, who have come close to finding the portals to our world are telling others before they can be obliviated, and creating bigger and bigger problems for the wizarding world. We were likely to have been revealed before the decade was up, and if this had happened then war would have broken out between wizards and muggles and while wizards would have won, our population would have been decimated to the point where it wouldn't be able to be rebuilt.

"Would have won? Excuse me. I think we would have had a fighting chance." Stark interruped.

"No you wouldn't have. I could take you all out on my own, and we would just have to send a house elf - a highly magical creature - to each of your weapon arsenals and they could all be destroyed in a day. Then you'd be fucked. And that's not hypothetical. That defense system had been in place for over a decade."

"But wizards didn't want it to come to that. We needed a better solution. Maybe, Fury," Harry turned to face the man. "You've heard of Protegat?

Yeah. Sort of. Wasn't that the Greek philosopher thing?"

"Yeah. It was a collaboration by Plato and Socrates, and later improved by Aristotle."

"Hey, wait. You're telling me that Plato, Socrates and Aristotle were wizards? Seriously? Why is it Latin then? When they are all Greek?" Stark interrupted.

"Hmm? Oh, yeah, sure. Back then the wizarding and muggle worlds were much closer, so some of the well known muggle philosophers and the like were actually wizards. That changed during the dark ages because the cultures couldn't interact properly anymore. It's in Latin because almost all spells have a Latin root, and although they were Greek, the philosophers were creating a spell of sorts, so it had to be in Latin.

"Any way, Plato and Socrates were aware that there would be a time when the two worlds would have to be separated completely, and so developed a sort of ward crossed with an enchantment that they just called Protegat that was able to hide wizards completely from muggles. It worked by identifying every bit of magic in the world, whether it be in a person, creature, or inanimate object and hid it from those that didn't have magic.

"It is a fantastic construction of runes and arithmancy, very very complex, and the research that it required was immense. Plato and Socrates were happy to leave the idea as a hypothetical and never really tested it. Later Aristotle decided to test the theory behind Protegat, and as he did this he found that there was a fundamental flaw in the spell. For it to work, because it was hiding magic, it couldn't use magic, as that created a sort of paradox within the spell that would cause something very bad, either a massive explosion that would destroy a continent, or it would create a rift in the universe that wouldn't be able to be closed or contained.

"So, Aristotle after identifying this problem, reworked some of the runes, and ended up with a spell that drew on a wizards life force instead, as something to be cast by a coven and a conclave in tandem, which is horrifically complex magic, not even taking into consideration that this is magic that is being cast without use of a wizards magical core, but magic from the earth that resists all attempts at being controlled. Aristotle was also happy to leave his reworking of Protegat as a hypothetical so the problem with it wasn't found until centuries later.

"Merlin had some Sight, an ability to see in to the future which is very rare in the wizarding world, and saw that Protegat would be needed at some point within the next couple of centuries, and so pulled the scroll out of the Library of Alexandria-"

"The Library of Alexandria was burnt down. Are you telling me that wizards have protected some of it?"

"Well yeah. Of course. They had some fire protection wards across the magical section. All our scrolls from that time are still there. I went to visit myself a few years ago. It's a gorgeous piece of architecture.

"Anyway, when Merlin was reviewing Protegat he found that while hiding the magical objects would be mostly simple, as it was able to be attached to the magical creature hiding enchantment, the one to hide wizards and witches would take too much life force. Rather than just taking some, or all, of the life of the conclave and coven, it required the equivalent of the entire life of each and every person who was to be affected.

"See the problem? In order to hide the magical world you would need to kill every magical and that would make Protegat redundant."

"I'm guessing because you are explaining this, Potter, that you found some way around it?" Fury asked.

"Yeah, of course. By a happy coincidence of fate and destiny I have become immortal. Like a true never dying, never aging immortal. It's something that will never be replicated by magical or non-magical means again. Because of this, I was able to cast the spell myself, with no need for a coven or conclave, and the magic from the earth was channelled through me, and fed on my never-ending life force, and shut the world away."

"What the fuck Potter. You can't just drop that on me. Never dying. What do you mean. That's impossible." Fury was furious.

"Yeah, I know it is. But I've always been abnormal. Don't worry, Fury. It doesn't change that much."

"Doesn't change that much. Of course not." Fury snorted. "I can't deal with this right now. Did the wizards agree to this Protegat or did you just go off and do your thing without any consultation like normal?"

"Every magical was aware of what I was planning to do. There had been a meeting of the International Confederation of Wizards only three days before, and every country had given me the go ahead. Probably the first and only time that it has ever has or will happen. I am now the only wizard or witch that any muggle will ever come into contact with."

"Do the rest of the normal governments know about this, Potter?"

"Yeah. They were told by their magical counterparts a day before it happened. You are probably the last person to be told who should be told."

"Why's that, Potter?"

"Why, Fury, you should have guessed. I'm here to take you up on your job offer."

Harry tossed his head back and laughed for the second time that day as Fury knocked back his glass of scotch and promptly poured himself another one.

"I fucking hate you, Potter. But you're too good to turn down. Welcome to S.H.I.E.L.D"


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry shares some things and definitely doesn't lie to Fury.

 

"I can put you on the S.H.I.E.L.D. task force, Potter, but you'll have to do some tests to see where you are best suited. Is the Statute still in place, or was it made redundant?" Fury asked.

"Technically it's still there, I mean, as if they would actually get rid of a law, but there are no longer any restrictions or monitors in the muggle world, so you don't have to worry about that."

"Ok then. I'll have someone draw up a contract for you."

"Yeah, ok. I will be looking over it, and I'll be changing a few things."

"Why did you come here, Potter? I mean, you could have told Fury all of this in his office, and would never have come into contact with the Avengers." Harry had always known that Stark was smart, but to come to that conclusion, while absorbing everything else he had been told in the last half hour was still very impressive.

"That's the other reason I'm here actually." Harry turned to Fury "I want to study them."

"What? No. No way. We've had people looking into them for years, read over our research if you want to."

Harry pouted. The one advantage of being a short seventeen year old forever was that he could pout and have people fall for it. "Come on. They're so fascinating. I mean four of them should not be alive, Thor is an Asgardian demi-god, and Barton is too good at what he does to be fully muggle, and I want to know why he wasn't captured by Protegat. They are so fascinating magically, you can't expect me to give this opportunity up."

"Potter. I can't let you do that."

"But I can help them. Banner especially. I want to see if wolfsbane can be modified for him." Harry was fairly sure it couldn't, as Banner had no magical core, and didn't share any characteristics with werewolves, but Fury didn't need to know that.

Harry smiled internally as he saw Fury waver. "Come on. I'll still work for you, but I get one day a week to come here and do some tests. Nothing invasive even. They'll be battle ready at the end of every day."

Fury seemed to consider it, before nodding slowly.

Harry had always taken advantage of his youthful appearance. As odd as it was for a thirty five year old to use that wheedling teenaged tone, no one really connected his real age and how old he appeared to be and realised that he was playing them. Or they did and thought his mental growth had been stunted as well. Or at least they did until-

"Thanks, sir. That's much appreciated." Harry's sudden shift to a cooler, much more sarcastic tone was always shocking for others. Except for Stark, oddly enough. Then again, Stark had a well known reputation as a playboy, and as a business man, two very different types of people. He must know about putting on different faces for different people, and playing them to get what you need.

"Do you mind if I go home now? I wanna get some sleep, and sort out my new apartment. I'll come in to the S.H.I.E.L.D. tomorrow for my tests. What time do you want me there?"

"8 o clock, Potter. In my office. I have some more questions for you."

Harry nodded then turned on his heel and apparated out of the tower to his apartment on the other side of Manhattan. He had bought this place a couple of years ago as somewhere to get away to. He hadn't warded any of it, and made sure to use minimal magic, so that when he cast the Protegat spell, his flat wouldn't be taken into the magical world. Now, however, he had no need to worry about that, and so set about casting a series of protection and security wards, mostly those that he learnt from Hermione during their year on the run and a couple more that he had learnt from Bill Weasley that were designed to be used on houses.

Harry finished casting his spells, and immediately walked into his bedroom, collapsing on the bed. He managed to bring his wand up to cast an alarm spell, and then fell asleep before he could even take his clothes off.

* * *

 

Harry apparated to the entrance to the S.H.I.E.L.D. base at a quarter past seven, leaving himself fifteen minutes to find Fury.

In hindsight, an hour and twelve checkpoints later, Harry realised that S.H.I.E.L.D. took their security far more seriously than he had expected. When Harry finally flopped down on a couch in Fury's office he was exhausted, and really not looking forward to the rest of his day.

"Okay, Fury. Ask away." Harry waved his hand in Fury's general direction. "Actually wait. Do you mind if I take out the electronics temporarily? That way Stark won't be able to listen in any more."

"How do you know Stark is listening in?"

"Because it's Stark. I have read his file. Plus you told me yesterday that he hacks into your system all the time. He heard you tell me to be here yesterday, he's not going to give up an opportunity to listen in."

"Fine. Go ahead. You break anything you pay for it. And everything in this room is unreleased StarkTech, so expect it to be expensive."

Harry sent out a concentrated burst of magic that expanded out to two feet outside Fury's office, nullifying any electronics within its range, before sitting up and smiling at Fury.

"Pfft. Expensive. I transferred all my gold into muggle money last month. Don't think I'm working for you for money, Fury, although I do expect to be paid."

"Ok then, Potter we'll talk about your contract later. For now, I have some more questions about the Protegat thing you talked about yesterday. Mainly, muggleborns. What are you doing about them?"

"House elves." Harry replied simply.

"House elves?" Fury asked. "How? You said no magic could get through at all."

"Well, yeah. There were six other people in that room, and I don't trust them for shit." While Harry may not like Fury, he respected his dedication to his job, and his country, and his agents. Now that Harry was to become one of these agents, his secrets would immediately fall under Fury's protection.

"You warm the depths of my heart, Potter. Now explain."

"I guess you know that house elves have different magic to just about every other magical creature, right?"

"Vaguely. I never bothered to read anything beyond your kinds history books, so I don't know any magical theory. Give me a run down."

"Nah, I can't be bothered. Just accept that its different and leave it at that. What I did, and this is why it took me ten years to cast the spell, was adapt it to allow house elves to pass through the spell. But only ones with a certain tag. Originally none were allowed through, but I wanted to be able to pass back and forth, and once I added that change it wasn't too hard to adapt it to house elves as well.

"Now I spent the last decade… appropriating most of the house elves in the magical world. You know my friend Hermione, and about S.P.E.W.?"

"I do."

"Right. So S.P.E.W. was much more effective than anyone could have expected and house elves have now fallen dramatically out of style. So much so, that ninety percent of them have been let go in the last decade. Ninety fucking percent. And while some of them have managed to create their own businesses, they mostly just fell into drinking butterbeer, and travelling the world cleaning muggle houses on the sly. So I got my elf Winky to gather most of them into a team, lead by her, that I have trained to keep the magical world functioning.

"There are two teams of hundreds of house elves each. A couple are assigned to each country, and they are responsible for identifying muggleborns, using the magical school book from each country that was used to send letters to all eleven year olds. Then, a few hours after birth, they change the muggleborn child for orphaned or abandoned child that has been given a blood inheritance potion with the muggleborn's parents blood in it. This replaces the muggleborn, and then they are taken to the magical world to be adopted by a family in their home country."

"That's really fucking messed up, Potter. Are all the children being adopted?"

"Yeah. There is a massive waiting list already, and I don't see that letting up. All the pureblood families are jumping at a chance to have another child, someone to play with their heir who has no real claim to their money. It's honestly working out a lot better than I thought it would."

"Christ, Potter. You're crazy."

"I know, but I also know what I'm doing. I worked out that children don't develop a core until their second day, so that means the house elves have twenty four hours to deal with each child, as after that they can't get through. That stops anyone on the other side from forcing an elf to bring them here. I don't really want to go into the details now. Do you want me to write a report on it?"

Fury nodded. "Yeah, please do. Now, what does your other team of house elves do?"

"Supply food. I bought out a couple hundred farms around the world, mainly the ones that were supplying to the magical world, and have trained house elves to run them, after setting up muggle repelling wards around the whole thing of course. They ship it through to the magical world and distribute it to the food suppliers. They only charge as much as they need to buy more seed, and occasional tools and stuff, as well as a little bit for me to make a profit off. Some of them are in charge of magical plants so that the apothecaries have suppliers too. It was actually the longest part of the process, making sure to buy up enough land, and make sure that it wasn't all under one name, or traceable back to any one person so that no one in the muggle world pick up on it. And no one did, not even S.H.I.E.L.D., so I think I did pretty well."

"No need to sound so full of yourself." Fury snorted.

"Eh. It's fucking impressive and you know it." Harry replied airily.

"It is. But it is also not my problem any more. Write the report. I want it handwritten. Every report of yours is going to be handwritten so there is no chance of it being hacked. And I want a magical safe to put them so that no one but you and me can get in." Fury demanded.

"I can do that. Might take me a few days. I'll have it done by the time you have my results back." Harry jumped up. "Lets go and get me tested."

* * *

 

Harry fell into his bed for the second night in a row, too tired to get up, but knowing that he had to take a shower.

The hardest part of becoming a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent would be increasing his overall fitness. Harry had been very unhealthy by the end of what would have been his seventh year, completely due to his year on the run. He had been in a worse condition than Hermione and Ron, but he attributed that to the Dursley's and the habitual starvation they put him through in his childhood. This meant that Harry was stuck in his emaciated seventeen year old body, that, while some what muscled, would present him as severely malnourished, and incapable of working in any medical test he could be put through.

Harry had tested his body extensively since he turned eighteen while working to improve his body as much as he could. He was improve his inner body meaning that as he trained his cardio strength increased, as well as his fitness, so that he didn't always fall over gasping for breath after running for a short while. He could also improve his flexibility, and could heal from any wound and illness that he was afflicted by. The only thing he couldn't change is his strength or his weight, as that would change his body on the outside, and that was frozen by the Hallows.

The only problem Harry had was that, while fit, he was no where near S.H.I.E.L.D. fit. He would have to train to work on that until he was up to par

Fury had tested Harry personally. He had been pushed through a series of circuits first, testing his strength, flexibility and overall competence in physical exercise. He had fared quite well, using magic in some cases to slow him self down after flipping off or over an obstacle, or to allow him to jump higher and further than he would be able to normally.

Fury had then moved him to a firing range, where he had been handed a gun and shown how to fire it. It had only taken him a few shots to get used to the recoil, something that was similar and different at the same time to how a wand would sometimes push back against the casters hand if they cast a particularly powerful spell. Harry had only had to adjust his arm muscles to a more powerful recoil than he was used to, and then he was able to fire almost any gun that Fury gave him, hitting the inner circles of the target every time. He promised himself to practice that every day until he could be one hundred percent accurate. Fury had then had him draw his wand and show his accuracy with a simple piercing hex fired at a human shaped target. Harry had sent off six in quick succession, and then brought the target forward, showing three holes; through the forehead, heart and throat.

Fury had asked him some questions about his offensive and defensive magical skills, but had quickly become confused by Harry's descriptions because they were so different to anything his own wizarding agents had been able to do.

Harry wasn't surprised. His training had been mostly overseen by Mad-Eye Moody, who's methods, while effective, were considered outdated by most of the wizarding world. Harry had worked with Moody, and the other Aurors in the Order to develop his own style of fighting which incorporated Moody's style and something that drew a lot on his own reliance of instinct. 

Harry had then been sent into a room that had been used by Fury's wizarding agents for training, and Fury had sent situation after situation at him from a battle to an assassination to a find and extract mission.

Harry felt that he had done fairly well in each situation considering he had always completed each mission. He had told Fury that while he may seem careless with his life, he was able to come back from any and all injuries he received and couldn't die, which had prompted Fury to draw a gun and shoot him twice in the heart.

Harry had coughed a few times, summoned the bullet out of his chest then stood up, blood pumping out of his chest and sent a petrification charm at Fury before walking over, the bullet hole healing as he went, and kicked Fury around the face with a roundhouse kick. Harry had told Fury that any injury he received in the future from him he would return in full, so trying to kill him again would just lead to his own death, and then where would S.H.I.E.L.D. be?

Fury had just laughed and asked an agent walking past to bring him some ice, telling Harry that he was happy with his competence, to consider himself hired and to go home and sleep.

Harry had immediately turned on his heel and popped home to his flat, and had fallen asleep.

* * *

 

The next morning, Harry levered himself up off his bed and wandered into the shower, stripping out of his sweaty clothes as he did so. He considered his reflection in the mirror for a second, tracing the scar he had received from Slytherin's locket. The scar now had a small silvery circle right over his heart, where the bullet from Fury had gone into his body. That's what all his post-Hallow scars had turned into, faint silvery skin. Harry figured that in a millennia or two his whole body would look like that. Harry just appreciated that there were able to be some changes to his body.

He turned away from the mirror and turned the shower on, letting the water heat up, already looking forward to sleeping. He would sleep and rest for a couple of days before reporting for his first day at S.H.I.E.L.D. on Monday.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Occasionally people forget that immortal beings live by different standards to everyone else. Harry fixes that assumption.

Harry walked into Avenger's tower at the end of his first week at S.H.I.E.L.D., ready to carry out the first series of tests on at least one team member. He had already completed a series of missions for Fury, mainly ones that tested his capabilities as an agent. He had been sent to 'retrieve' some important documents from a house in China, and then the same in Australia. Fury was taking full advantage of his being able to be in and out of a country on the other side of the world before a plane from America could even arrive.

The Avenger's were arrayed around the room when he arrived, spread out in obviously as an intimidation tactic. Harry laughed internally at their caution, and that they viewed him as a large enough threat that they needed to put on this show.

"Look at you. The world's greatest superheros scared of Big Bad Harry Potter." Harry cooed,

"We're not scared, short stuff. We were told by Fury to be here for you to examine us. So here we are. You have some sort or experiments you want to test or something. We just want to know what those tests are and what they are looking for." Stark managed to retort, despite clearly being absorbed in his work. The man was sitting at the dining table, machinery of some sort spread out in pieces in front of him. "Come and take a seat, and give us some details. And if you plan on going into any detail, place give us some explanation into the theory. And don't worry about me, at least ,understanding. I'm not called a genius for nothing.

Harry crossed the room to sit at the table at the other and from Stark, coincidentally the one furthest from Thor. "I have some books somewhere at home from school, on basic magical theory. Would you be interested in them? They are quite dry, but, you say you're a genius, so I'm sure you can get through them."

"Seriously? That would be fantastic. I've been analysing Thor's magic for a while, looking at how the energy he emits reacts with his surroundings, and how it affects the atmosphere on an atomic level, while Bruce here has been looking at the energy itself, so see if he can see what it actually is, and if it is able to be replicated."

Harry was momentarily shocked at this announcement. Actually looking into Asgardian magic using science was incredible no matter how you looked at it. But then Harry considered who he was talking to, two of the brightest minds on the planet, and realised that he had underestimated them to some extent. He readjusted his mental file on them, and then pulled himself together.

"I want to look at how you all work. None of you are human, not fully. Well you are, but not in the normal sense. I want to look at that from a magical perspective."

He drew his wand under the table as he said this and sent a colourless spell at each Avenger. These were designed for use by mediwizards for general check-ups and diagnoses. Harry had a fairly extensive understanding of human anatomy and ability, and wanted to see how each team member differed from the norm. He also sent out a general spell designed to test magical power levels. He was interested as to how this spell reacted to the Avengers, and especially Thor and Barton, as they clearly had some form of magic - Thor much more obviously than Barton - and he wanted to see what it really was and how it worked.

"We've had S.H.I.E.L.D. agents looking at us for years. Thinking back on it, and knowing Fury, I'm sure at least some of the scientists were wizards and carried out their own magical experiments. Fury seems to like you, at least to some extent. If you asked him for it, he'd give you their information." Banner replied mildly. He was leaning on a counter against Stark, occasionally pointing out, or moving around parts of the machinery arrayed on the table. Harry was fascinated by his interactions with Stark. The man was completely fearless in his actions toward Banner, poking his fingers away with the welder he was holding, albeit only when it was off. Banner in turn did not seem in any way distressed by these actions, no hint of green tinting his skin, and appearing completely calm.

"Well, yeah. You heard him offer last week. But I don't want to do those sorts of experiments. I've looked through them and they are completely different to what I want. As I expected. You heard me tell Fury when I was here that I will never age, right" Harry paused and waited for Banner to nod."That had an interesting effect on my magic and how I interact with the world. That means I'm looking for different things than what Fury's people were. Like I said, four of you shouldn't be alive" The wizarding S.H.I.E.L.D. agents had really only ever looked at the Avenger's basic physiology and tested them for magic. Harry wanted to far past this and really examine how they worked and how they were even alive.

"That's bloody fascinating to me. Barton is something that the magical world has never seen before and don't even get me started on Thor. Man, his magic is gorgeous." Harry knew Thor would not be able to deal with this comment. He was already being pushed to his limit, and Harry wanted to push him past it.

"No. That is enough. I will not deal with you any longer." Thor stood up and slammed his hands on the table, clearly pushed to his breaking point. "You. Are. Unnatural. Why are you even here?"

Harry stood up from his seat then jumped onto the table, striding towards Thor. "For Merlins sake, big guy. I'm not unnatural. I am the most natural thing to have happened to Earth in centuries. And you bloody well know it. What is your problem."

Thor reached out and grabbed Harry's arm, pulling him off the table and then pushing him to the floor, looming over him to shout. "YOU ARE UNNATURAL! You are Death, and you are alive and that should not happen. That is not how it works. You talk about balance and you ruin it by your very actions. You disgust me."

Harry smoothly got to his feet and backed away so the table was between them. Slowly he raised his wand to point at Thor's heart, the silent threat clear. "I disgust you huh?" His voice was calm, detached, but his hand was shaking from repressed fury. He wanted to just let go. He wanted to make the thunder god feel just how it felt to be embraced by death. He wanted forget about his exceptional self-control just for a moment, and damn the consequences "You don't know. You don't know a thing," he whispered before continuing. "By insulting me you insult Hel. I don't think she would be very happy with that. And I should know how she feels."

Thor let out an inarticulate scream of rage and charged at Harry, clearly intending to fight him. Harry settled into a ready stance, prepared to fight physically as well as with magic.

He ducked under Thor's first grab for him, and kneed him in the stomach. Unfortunately he had forgotten that Thor was a demi-god, and his knee wasn't going to hurt him at all. Thor just curled around the knee, and then stepped back, slamming his elbow into the back of Harry's head as he did so. They both began to circle around each other, waiting for the next round of blows to begin, but before they had a chance, Harry was grabbed from behind and dragged back, and he saw Stark holding Thor back by his hair, dressed in his Iron Man suit.

Harry struggled against the arms holding him, running magic just under his skin, and shocking the other enough for them to let go. He danced out of reach, looking over his shoulder to see Rogers nursing his left arm, but getting ready to jump at him again.

"Stop!" Thor shouted. Stark loosened his grip in his shock, allowing Thor to step forward, while Harry took advantage of Rogers confusion to dance out of his way, but didn't see Romanoff come up behind up, and so was surprised when she grabbed him in a tight hold, ensuring that she wasn't touching any of his skin, and that he would have to dislocate his shoulder to break free. Unfortunately she didn't know that Harry had dislocated his shoulder at least seven times solely in his time as an Auror, and was prepared to do just that. He twisted out of her grip, and then dodged out of the way while slamming his shoulder against a convenient wall, hissing as his arm popped back into place. She would have come for him again, but then Thor shouted again, "Stop! You must stay out of this. Let us fight."

"Yeah. Let the man fight his own battles. Isn't six on one a bit unfair."

"What are you on about, Point Break? We have to let you fight. Please." Stark was clearly over his shock and well into incredulity.

"Yes. You must. It shall not take too long. I will crush him, then I will explain."

While clearly reluctant, the Avenger's stood down, crossing to the other side of the room, and lining against a wall to stay out of the way. While Harry was astounded at their trust in one another, he dismissed this for later consideration. He set up a clear shield in front of them that would prevent any spells from hitting the team, then turned back to Thor.

"You wanna fight? A proper Asgardian fight? Winner takes the prize?"

"Yes." Thor hissed, unable to fully enunciate in his rage. "Winner takes the prize."

"Bring it then, big guy. Just you and me. Show me what you've got! Prove that you are better than me like you so clearly think you are." Harry taunted. Thor stepped forward again, bringing his foot around to swipe Harry's feet from under him, but he jumped over the leg, landing lightly on his toes. "That's it? Ha. You have no idea what I'm capable of. Come on. Bring out the hammer, and then we'll really have a go."

"You couldn't hope to match me when I hold Mjolnir. I have thousands of years of training on you." Thor contradicted his words by holding his hand out, and summoning the hammer to his hand.

Harry snorted, "Yeah, and I was trained by Mad-Eye Moody, so I think we are pretty much even" Harry saw, out of the corner of his eye, the rest of the Avengers straining forward, clearly interested in the fight. Stark was beginning to look worried about his tower and the damage they could do to it. Harry just hoped that he and Thor could finish before Banner transformed, because while he was sure that the man had it somewhat under control, as far as he was aware, the Hulk would at some point emerge to defend its team mate, and Harry didn't think a shield charm would hold it back.

Harry cast a shield charm to repel Thor's first swipe at him with the hammer, and while it stopped it, the charm broke upon impact. Harry quickly ran forward under Thor's arm and kicked his leg up to slam his heel into Thor's chin, then fell backwards, rolling over the back of a couch. Thor's head snapped up, but he brought it back down slightly, looking only a little bit dazed. He leapt over the couch and brought the hammer down over Harry's head, but he cast a stronger shield charm than before and managed to stop it from hitting him. Thor continued to put pressure on the hammer however, and slowly began to push the charm down, wearing out the magic, and causing it to fluctuate slightly. Harry quickly brought his wand down to cancel the shield and apparated to the other side of the room, casting a cutting charm at Thor's exposed back. It cut through his clothes, and dug into his skin, leaving a shallow, but long cut running along side his spine, that Harry knew from experience hurt with every movement.

"First blood to me, demi-god." Harry said, drawing out the word demi-god. He figured that if Thor thought he was unnatural, he had some issue with his inability to die, and taunting him about it was bound to raise his temper.

Thor snarled. "My brother had similar tricks, but he has never beaten me in a fight. You should give up now."

Harry waved his wand, casting an illusion that made it seem like he split into three bodies, sending one to one side of the room and running to the other, leaving the second illusion standing where it was. He directed that illusion to run at Thor, then continue through his body. Harry had learnt this trick after a bounty hunter he was tracking down did the same to him. He knew that Thor was currently feeling like a ghost had passed through him, like he had been drenched in cold water. Harry wasn't sure how his magic would react with Asgardian magic, but hoped that it hurt.

While he was still feeling the effects Harry sent a confundus at Thor, then an expelliarmus, but he wasn't prepared for Thor to dodge them and then take the few steps toward him and smash him with his hammer. Harry flew through the air crashing into a wall, and knocking an, undoubtedly expensive, paiting off the wall.

Harry stood up slowly, feeling his ribs twinge, clearly brused, and then swifltly sent a controlled burst of fire at Thor, hitting him full on and knocking him back onto a couch, most likely singing it a little bit, and burning the demi-gods skin.

Thor stood up, whirled around, and then in a motion far faster than the eye could see, brought Mjolnir up to face Harry and sent out a burst of concentrated energy aimed at Harry's heart.

Harry tried to apparate out of the way again, but he wasn't completely fast enough, and when he appeared again two feet to the left he had a deep cut along his side that was had been cauterised as it was made. Harry stretched his arm up above his head, feeling that while the wound hurt, it wouldn't impede his movement, but would take some time to heal.

"Second blood to me, death god." Thor taunted.

Harry, with his arm still stretched above his head, began a spell chain that he had crafted to capture prisoners who could be hurt, but not killed. He wasn't prepared to see what an avada kedavra would do to the demi-god.

He cast a stupefy, sectumsempra, incarcerous and bludgeoning hex in quick succession, watching as Thor took the first one, pushing off it's effects with no difficulty, blocked the second with his hammer, dodged the third, but stepped right into the path of the fourth, which pushed him to his knees. While it wouldn't seriously damage the thunder god like it would a human, the hex would have the same effect as a confudus for a few moments, which was long enough for Harry to run forward, kick his wrist to make him drop the hammer and put his wand under Thor's chin.

When Thor came to he descended into a series of curses, most that didn't make sense to Harry, but, he assumed, would to any Asgardian. "Do you yield?" Harry asked.

Thor glared up at him without answering. Harry pushed his wand deeper into Thor's neck, casting a non-verbal stinging charm. He smiled viciously at the demi-god when he jerked back slightly. "Do you yield?"

Thor paused for a second, before bowing his head. "I yield."

"I take as my reward, answers to my questions answered fairly and truthfully."

"It shall be done."

Harry's wand glowed gold for a moment, binding Thor to his word. Harry stepped back, and felt the wound in his side again, and huffed out a laugh. "This is the first time in a long time that a wound has left me injured me for more than a minute. Your hammer really is something."

Thor picked up Mjolnir, swinging it over his shoulder. "It's forging nearly destroyed Midgard. I would hope that it was superior to anything you have faced before."

Harry wasn't surprised at Thor's absolute lack of hostility towards him. He had beaten the demi-god in a fight, and that was enough to prove himself as deserving of respect. In Asgard a proven warrior was always to be respected, and Thor, above all, respected his people's traditions

Harry and Thor crossed back to the table where the rest of the Avenger's were standing. Harry removed the sheild charm in front of them, and stepped back as Stark immediately shouted at them.

"What the fuck was that? I mean, seriously. I just got this floor remodeled. You are so lucky the dining table is still in place. That is a seriously complicated piece of machinery that would take me days to put back in order."

"Shut up, Tony." Rogers spoke calmly. "Thor, what was that? You said you would explain. Why did you really need to fight him?"

Harry flopped down into his chair, and waited for Thor to try and explain an Asgardian custom to humans. "I did need to fight him. We were at odds. We both wanted different things. So we fought. He won, and now he can claim his prize."

Harry snorted loudly at Thor's ridiculous non-explanation. Their Avenger's heads swung toward him, and Barton was the first to question him. "What?"

Harry snorted again. "Nothing. It's just his answer was so shit, and you all look so confused. I apologise, it was rude."

"Would you mind clearing it up then? You clearly understood what he was talking about." Romanoff was clearly still hostile towards him, but knowing what he did about the woman, it would take a lot to gain her trust. Honestly, it would take a lot to gain the trust of any of the Avengers, as none of them were particularly open before the formation of the team, and afterwards had become a completely self-contained unit. Harry was starting the ground work now by dealing the Thor first, removing his most vocal opposition and gaining a tentative ally in the thunder god.

"It's an Asgardian custom. Don't bother to understand it, just accept that fighting was the only way that we could have settled our differences."

"Wait, you mean that Thor's hatred of you, and I do mean hatred, is now gone because you, what, beat him in a fight? Seriously? That's completely unreasonable. And I told you, I'm a genius. If you explain something to me, I will understand it." Stark replied.

"Merlin, fine. I proved myself better than him. For Asgardians that means I deserve his respect, and because the fight was about our opposing views, we entered the fight knowing that the winner would demand a boon from the loser. Because I won he has to accepts what I asked of him, and gets over his issues with me. Well, he doesn't actually have to get over them, he just has to hide them. You see?"

Stark nodded, clearly formulating more questions in his mind, but Harry didn't have time to deal with a genius in research mode. He quickly sat up in his chair and turned to face Thor. "Now. Questions. Your main issue seems to be with my existence and it being unnatural. Why do you think it is unnatural?"

"You can not be alive. You are Death's master. You are something above Death, yet you reside here as if one of Midgard. It is not right." Thor's voice was one of careful neutrality.

"Your problem is that I shouldn't be here on Earth? Well get over it, I'm staying. I have a job and everything." Harry replied. He knew what Thor was saying was bullshit, and while something he clearly had considered, not the true reason he hated Harry.

"No, that is not my problem. As Master of Death you should accept the balance of Life and Death and try to maintain it, not hide your people so that the very fabric of time is disrupted. A war was coming. But now it is not, and shall never be. You are changed deaths that were not meant to happen and saved people who were meant to die, and that is not your prerogative." Some anger had bled into the thunder god's tone.

"I don't do anything without Death's acceptance. I can't do anything without its acceptance. I may be Death's Master, but seriously, I'm thirty-five. I'm not going to be able to boss around a being that is as old as life itself. I may have messed with time by stopping the war from happening, but I was told it was ok."

"By whom." Thor asked derisively, clearly not believing him.

"Death."

"How could you talk with Death? Hel has vanished. She has been gone since you visited Asgard."

Harry frowned. Thor's voice didn't make any sense. It wasn't as it... And suddenly it all clicked into place for Harry. Thor might be pissed off about Harry affecting the Life-Death cycle, but he would have accepted it as long as it didn't affect Asgard. It was the domain of beings above his power after all. But it Hel, the Asgardian representation of Death, was missing... That changed things. It meant that those on Asgard believed his power was absolute, and that he had already claimed one of their own. Thor's animosity had grown since their first meeting on Asgard, when Death had dropped him there fifteen years ago to meet beings from another plane of existence, and it had since grown into a full blown hatred.

"I didn't do anything to her. She isn't even Death. Not really. But she was an aspect of it and my ascension to Master of Death and then interaction with her fifteen years ago meant that she was, for want of a better word, re-absorbed. She must have known this was going to happen. I don't know why she never told anyone. But it's not my fault. I have had nothing to do with Asgard, and never plan to. I am leaving that solely to Death. Is that why you're acting the way you are towards me?"

"Of course. I thought you took one of Asgard. That is not something to be forgiven." Thor replied with righteous indignation. " I also did not appreciate my magic forcing me to bow to one with no honour."

"Hey! What do you mean no honour. That's just rude. I have honour. Does it mean nothing to you that I died so that my people my survive?"

"I assumed that power had gone to your head. It would not be the first time that someone had succumbed to it. We have monitored your people, and even you, Harry Potter. Voldemort died not long ago for an Asgardian. Forgive me." Thor held out his hammer in the manner traditional to Asgardians.

Harry touched the tip of the Elder wand to the hammer. "I forgive you." Harry would have liked to draw it out for longer, as he was truly offended by what Thor had said, but he needed to be on the Avengers good side for the tests he wanted to carry out on them, and looking like the good guy was guaranteed to get him that.

"That's it. That's all you needed to do?" Romanoff's voice was incredulous.

"Yeah. That's it. When you expect to live for thousands of years you deal with grudges differently. It's done and never to be spoken of again." Harry replied. He clapped his hands before any of them could question him, purposefully keeping the Avenger's off balance with his mood changes. "Now. Testing. I have enough for today. I've had some preliminary scans running since I got here, so give me a few minutes to transcribe them and I'll be out of your hair."

Harry pulled six pieces of parchment out of his pocket, tapped them with his wand to unshrink them, then stretched them out on the table in front of him. He pointed his wand at each Avenger in turn, tapping his wand to a piece of parchment in between.

"Thor called you Death's Master? What did he mean?" Banner asked, perhaps to fill the silence that had permeated the room.

Harry didn't look up from the pieces of parchment he was reading over, but nevertheless took the time to answer Banner. "It means that I am the Master of Death. A combination of fate, luck and genetics made me the Master of Death when I was seventeen. That's why I look the age I do. That's also why I'm so interested in why you aren't dead. You should be, and you aren't, and that is fascinating." Harry looked up and gave the man a mischievous smirk. "I'm somewhat of an expert on the topic."

The pieces of parchment all suddenly rolled themselves up into a scroll, and Harry picked them up and tucked them back in his pockets.

He walked over to the lift door, ignoring any attempts to stop him for further questioning. "I'll be back next week. Write a list of questions, and I'll try to answer them." Honestly he would probably lie, or only tell half-truths, but making it seem like he was opening up would ensure that the Avengers were more receptive to his own questions in turn.

Harry stepped into the lift and turned to face the team, sitting in the middle of a wrecked room. "Cheers for all the help today. I appreciate it. And Stark, I'll send you compensation for the damage." Harry sent the man a wink as the lift doors closed and the last thing he saw was Stark's shocked face.

Harry smiled. He knew Fury would have had some sort of monitoring system in the room, and seeing him win against S.H.I.E.L.D.'s pet demi-god was sure to increase the quality of his missions. He was getting pretty fucking sick of finding and retrieving pieces of paper.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments, questions and opinions are as always, highly valued and appreciated. Sorry for the delay in putting this out. Have a good one xxx


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry screws with S.H.I.E.L.D. and gets laid.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: Explicit sex. If that's not your thing miss the last part out.

Fury had finally taken Harry's fighting and magical abilities into account, and assigned him to Mutant Management. Mutants had mostly integrated into society by now, but, as always with any socially oppressed group, there were radicals. Radicals who were determined to gain power for themselves. Most of these were able to be taken care of by the regular, non-magical S.H.I.E.L.D. agents. They went in as a team and came out with a knocked out and bound mutant ready to go though the legal system.

Occasionally, however, there was a mutant whose abilities were beyond what Fury could reasonably expect his agents to deal with. He had previously sent some of his magical agents to deal with them, but as they were all gone, this was Harry's new role within the agency.

He was able to match almost every mutant's power with magic, and those that he couldn't he sneaked up on and hit with a stunner from behind. Slytherin but effective.

He was on a mission now, hiding behind a house that was remarkably like the one he had grown up in. Harry had been aiming to hide behind the agapanthus', but had not really been able to see in the faint light of the moon and the street lights around the front of the house, so he had run straight into the thorny rose bushes, and he didn't want to move for a little while, as that would draw attention from inside the house.

Fury had thrown a file on his desk a week ago which detailed the members and aims of a group of mutants, the Liberators, who all lived in the outer suburbs of New York. It was the least likely place that anyone would expect mutants to live, let alone live in large enough numbers for a group with radical ideas to form, but Harry had stopped trying to understand the ways of suburbia at age nine, and wasn't about to start again now.

So here he was, ready to break into a house and capture the final member of the Liberators. According to the minds of the others he was the leader.

He had really enjoyed tracking the mutants down, as they had all posed somewhat of a challenge to him. They had all carefully maintained a distance when in public, to the extent that most of their families had no idea that they knew any of the other Liberators, or even that it exists. They had meetings once a week, so he had captured the second in command immediately after, taken the knowledge of the addresses of the others from her mind, and then proceeded to take the rest one by one throughout the week, wanting to collect them all before the next meeting. They were all locked away in S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters, in cells next to each other, but were still knocked out, so Harry had no worries about them managing to contact the final member, Steven Davis. This was important because the man was a telepath of considerate power, and had managed to forge a mental connection with every one of the LIberators.

It had taken a considerable amount of effort for Harry to twist the connections so that Davis wouldn't notice, as Legilimency was magic, and so, is very different from a mutants power, but he had managed a quick fix, although it would most likely fall down in the next day or so. By then however he would have Davis in custody, and it wouldn't matter.

Harry crept toward the house, making sure not to make any noise, and kept under his Invisibility cloak. He had never had to actually hide while using his cloak before, but Davis' power was enough for him to notice if there were any significant disturbances in the area around his house. If he did manage to sense Harry, he hoped that as the man would actually be unable to see anything he would assume it was a cat or other animal.

He slid up onto the porch, pressing himself against the house, centering his mind to ensure that his occluded mind would be able to survive any attack the telepath threw at him. Harry truly wasn't sure if he could actually maintain any sort of protection against a telepath, as he had never had a chance to come up against a mutant with that power before. He had always had incredible luck in dangerous situations, however, so he hoped that came through for him here.

He sneaked up to the door, raised his wand and tapped the keyhole. The door unlocked with a silent click and he reached for the door handle.

A sudden sound from above him had him pausing and he withdrew back across the porch so he could look up at the roof. There a woman made her way stealthily down the tiled roof, and began climbing down the wall, having just come out of the window Harry knew to be the one to Davis' office.

He was about to stun the woman, and continue with the mission, when he saw a flash of red hair, and the tight black cat suit she was wearing.

"Romanoff?" He said in a whisper that came out louder than he expected in surprise. He hadn't been expecting any S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, but would take any help offered.

Harry saw the spy jolt slightly, which was the only warning he got before she leapt off the wall, directly at where he was standing. He managed to twist out of her way, and came up behind her, holding his wand to her neck.

"Get that stick out of my neck, Potter." Romanoff snapped.

Harry lowered his wand, stowing it in his back pocket for now, taking a few steps back in case she decided to attack him anyway."What were you doing in the house." Harry hoped the telepath hadn't noticed her in the house, or heard their little scuffle and run off. He needed to get rid of the spy and get on with his assignment.

"I'm on assignment. Why are you hiding outside this house?" She replied suspiciously, turning her body to face him, despite Harry still being invisible. He was impressed at her accuracy actually. She was only off by a few centimetres.

"Assignment? This is _my_ assignment. I've been working on it for weeks. Fury knows this!" Harry was angry that Fury clearly didn't trust him enough to deal with his assignment on his own. He knew that Fury didn't trust him, but he had been reporting back to the man on a regular basis. If then man had made good on his promise to have agents following and sent his Black-Widow in... There would be hell to pay.

He looked at Romanoff suspiciously. "What were your orders?"

"Assassination." Romanoff stated bluntly.

Harry whipped his cloak off, letting it disintegrate back into his magic. No need to hide now that his only chance of being found was dead. "Assassination?" He whispered. "Assassination of Steven Davis?"

"Yes. I guess those on top weren't happy with your job so far. I was assigned three hours ago. He's dead now. Mission accomplished. Go and check if you don't believe me." Romanoff gestured up to the still open window, then glanced at him, and noted his dismayed face. "Don't see why it took you a week..."

"It took a week, you chit." Harry growled. "Because I've been detaining twenty-five members of radical mutant group, who were planning to kill the President, and might have been actually able to achieve it." Harry ran his left hand through his hair and sighed exasperatedly. "Bollocks. Davis was the only one who knew the whole plan, and I'm pretty sure he was answering to someone else. Now we have no chance of finding out who."

Harry saw that Romanoff's face morph into shock out of the corner of his eyes. "Why was I assigned here then, when apparently Fury knows about this." She paused. "Either someone made a mistake, or someone wanted Davis dead. " Romanoff looked at Harry askance, suspicion back in full force. "You did tell Fury your target didn't you?"

Harry laughed. "Yeah. I may be an irritating shit towards him, but he is my boss for now, and I do respect him. I brief him every evening. Who gave you your orders?"

"They came through our handler. He said he received them from higher up. It wasn't tagged as important though. I could have done it tomorrow, but I came out tonight because I wanted to stretch my legs."

"Merlin. I don't like it." Harry looked at the house thoughtfully. "I don't believe in coincidences. When key people turn up dead, there is usually a reason for it.

"I'm not sure if this is a conspiracy, or if you're just being paranoid, but I'll report it all back to Fury." Romanoff said simply, moving off the porch.

Brilliant! Thanks. I need to get back to S.H.I.E.L.D. and interrogate twenty-four mutants in the next few hours. "

"Sure." Romanoff replied. "Why the time limit?"

"They were all mind-linked to Davis, and in the wisdom of fanatics everywhere, had their lives tied to him in a glorious pronouncement of unity and faith. If their leader died then they all died. I think Davis came up with it so that they would all protect him and wouldn't desert him."

Romanoff's lips twitched as if she were repressing a smile. "I'll fill Fury in. You get to interrogating. " She ran around to the front of the house before he had a chance to reply, and Harry heard a car start up, then drive away.

Harry contemplated going into the house, just to see if there was anything that Davis' body or possessions could tell him, but decided against it. He had no real need to see his corpse, because if Romanoff said he was dead, then he was, and the S.H.I.E.L.D. clean up crew would be by within the hour, and would collect any suspect documents or pieces of evidence. They crew already knew what they were looking for, having been through each of the Liberator's houses after Harry had collected them, so he had full faith in the abilities to find anything of interest one last time.

Really, Harry was more worried about Romanoff having been here at all. Fury might have just taken the chance to keep tabs on Harry, but if he had, the Black-Widow would have just been assigned to follow him, not completely disrupt his mission. Harry ran his hands through his hair again, pushing the unruly strands to stand on end. It just didn't make sense!

For now though, Harry just had to concentrate on getting everything he could from the already captured mutants. He concentrated for a moment on the cell where the lowest ranking Liberator was located, before turning on his heel and apparating away.

* * *

 

Harry had never particularly liked going into other's minds. He had been wary ever since Professor Lockhart had tried, and failed, to Obliviate him in his second year, and that wariness had been cemented as a fear in his fifth year, when Snape and Voldemort were consistently mind-raping him for a year. That experience, coupled with Harry's excursions since then into peoples mind's in later years, meant that he was very aware of exactly what the damage to a person's mind could be. If Harry made even the smallest mistake, the damage could be irrevocable.

That fear however was sometimes overruled by anger, or desperation, which is why Harry was currently smashing his way through the minds of twenty-four mutants. They were all going to die anyway, and Harry had no compunctions about ruining their minds and leaving them as drooling husks before their bodies failed.

He threw his mind into each of theirs, searching for memories pertaining to the government, mutants, the Liberators and any orders they had been given, but came up with almost nothing each time.

They had all reported to Steven Davis, and didn't share information between themselves. They had a stupid amount of faith in their leader, and had been happy to just carry out orders, believing that he knew what he was doing.

They weren't the most fanatical of groups Harry had ever seen, the Death Eaters still won out, but their fervour was something Harry was wary of. Groups this dedicated often had a back up plan.

Harry wound his way through the current mutant's mind. His name was Jonathon Jameson. He had two kids and worked as a banker. He played golf on Thursdays, went out with his colleagues for drinks each Saturday, and was planning to kill his wife next Wednesday because she was an impediment to their plans.

Mrs Jameson was a secretary in the office of the Mayor of New York, and had been responsible for keeping track of mutant registration. Jonathon had been ordered to kill his wife, and then, before her death was noticed, sneak into her office, making use of his ability to turn invisible, and steal the files of the other Liberators so the government had no idea they were mutants.

Jonathon had no idea what the bigger picture was, or why his task would help the Liberators, past the obvious, but had still been planning the murder with no hint of morals, ethics or love for his wife getting in the way. Harry faced the same problems with each of the mutants. They were given tasks, some unreasonable, some that did make sense, but none of them had any idea of their leaders true motivations or long term plans, past the grand plan of killing the president.

He had been able to gather only a few concrete pieces of information, which he was relaying to Fury later that evening.

"In short, they were working on a plan to take out the government from the inside, mostly with of bribes, and the occasional assassination." Harry paused as Fury snorted.

"That gets me every time. You'd think when they planned to take over the _American Government_ they'd have a plan that had any chance of working. I mean bribes and assassinations? From middle class suburban mutants? Please."

Harry grinned widely. "I know, fantastic. But you did assign the mission to me for a reason. They had the potential to be dangerous. I mean a telepath as leader, a fire manipulator, the bloke who could turn invisible, the lady able to create different poisons in her skin, the animator and don't forget the lady capable of making all their mutations more powerful. And that's only a few of them. That's an incredible selection of mutations, and they were all ones that were able to hide easily. We only picked up on them because you've hacked into Xavier's Cerebro recordings. You might want to ask next time, I'm sure he picked up on it." Harry noted slyly, laughing as Fury twitched slightly, as if he had clamped down on the sudden urge to draw his gun.

Harry wasn't meant to know the source of Fury's information, but Harry didn't believe in going into any situation blind. He had mentioned that he had a mission to the Avengers last time he was there, and then looked into Stark's mind to see what the man had found from the S.H.I.E.L.D. database in his routine check. He wasn't surprised that Stark was monitoring his actions within S.H.I.E.L.D. and planned on taking advantage of that in the future.

"Anyway." Harry continues. "This combination of assassination and bribery was their plan, but Davis had split the group in two, with one group taking assassination and the other bribery, and neither had any idea what the other group was doing. Which was, in theory, a good idea. They were going to start with New York first, and work their way up to getting someone elected to parliament in Washington, then branch out from there. It wouldn't have worked, but it looked good on paper, which is why they all signed up in the first place.

"What I'm worried about, is that, from their impressions, Davis wasn't that intelligent. Smart sure, but not smart enough to come up with any kind of serious anti-government plan."

"What do you mean, Potter?" Fury had sat sat back into his chair, and was now leaning towards Harry over his desk.

"I think he was acting on someone else's orders, and this someone planned it so that Romanoff was ordered to kill Davis before S.H.I.E.L.D. could get to him."

Harry smiled viciously at Fury. "They didn't however count on it being me-"

Fury interrupted Harry before he could continue."

"Don't be so sure about that. Giving out incomplete information to the grunts is one of the few ways of protecting oneself from a mind reader, and from your report it seems like they did just that. Rather effectively too; you got practically nothing of value from the rest of them."

"There are other mind readers, Fury, I'm sure they were more concerned about Xavier, than me. And even if they know about me; what do they know? My name? That I look seventeen when I should look thirty-five? That I'm a wizard? They know nothing. They have no idea what I'm capable of, what kind of power I possess. Even the wizards had no real idea about my abilities. I mean, I've never been discreet, so they would learn, but I'd can track them down so much faster than anyone else. Let me deal with this Fury."

Fury leant back in his chair, and brought his hands up to clasp over his stomach. "Why should I? I have older, higher-ranking and more trustworthy agents who are perfectly capable of dealing with this. I could move you off it and put you back on information retrieval."

"Yeah, and it would take them months longer that I would." Harry scoffed.

"I can't take the chance that they do know it's you, and have a way to capture you effectively. You said you don't even know if you can keep a telepath out of your mind!

"Didn't know you cared so much about my well being Fury." Harry replied grumpily.

"Hardly, Potter, I'm more worried about you being controlled by some mad-man, and destroying the world."

Harry snorted and leaned back in his chair. "As if that would ever happen. I spent five years tracking down Death Eaters, who had a personal reason to hate me, and want to kill me. And I managed to capture all of them before I hit twenty-five. I know what I'm doing." Harry gestured to his face. "I know I look like an amateur, but that doesn't mean I am one."

"With that attitude, Potter, I wouldn't let you walk my dog, let alone hunt down a my dog."

"Let me? Come on Fury, we both know I'm going to do it regardless of what you say. It would just be less of hassle if I had your blessing and official access to S.H.I.E.L.D. resources."

Fury was quiet for a moment. "You're being unusually obstinate." He glared at Harry, and if he'd been a wizard Harry might have been suspecting Fury of using Legilimency. "What's the real reason?"

"You know the real reason."

"Potter." Fury growled in response.

"Fine. You already talked to Romanoff. You know there is a chance S.H.I.E.L.D has been compromised, I wouldn't be surprised if you've already launched an investigation. Someone somehow had access to Romanoff and gave her orders without you knowing./This someone knew we had a part of their operation under surveillance and had to act, but the spy can't have known I was involved with the case. You and I were the only ones who knew it was even being dealt with by S.H.I.E.L.D.. According to any files, the FBI were taking in the mutants." Harry straightened up and said excitedly."And that's our advantage! The spy thinks he got away with it. He's going to keep passing on information. So, you continue as usual, send out your agents and keep any inquires at a low priority. Make it seem like they are more routine investigations than a serious search for a specific spy. In the meantime I'll carry out my own investigation. He. or she, won't expect me. It's the best solution."

"Except that you will be alone without backup as you'll be operating cut-off from S.H.I.E.L.D., which is just the kind of scenario I don't want any agent to be in, even if it is you."

"And we're back to that. Honestly? What part of I'd do it anyway didn't you understand? It's a win-win situation; I get something interesting to deal with and you get me out of your hair for the next year. Well," Harry paused and smiled cheekily. "I would be if you had any hair."

"Shut up, Potter."Fury replied mildly, not at all fazed by Harry's insult. "How are you going to report back to me. According to all files you're just a junior agent. You don't have any reason to be meeting with me."

Harry nodded to Fury in acknowledgement of the problem, thinking furiously. "I'll need to report to you weekly. And don't expect me to stop looking at the Avenger's because of this..." Harry trailed off. "That's it. Talk to Stark. Set up a system that I can use to pass information on to you, and you can send orders back. He hacks into the database often enough, that any spy won't be keeping track of it. Works out perfectly.

"Perfectly, except that Stark will now have permission to access S.H.I.E.L.D. files."

"Well, you win some you lose some." Harry replied flippantly.

"What happened to a win-win situation?" Fury growled.

"I don't know, Fury. What do you want me to do?" Harry shot back. "There might be a leak in your agency, and right now the only plan you've got to deal with it involves me. I'm trying to work with you here Fury, but you've got to work with me too." Harry ran his hands through his hair. "Merlin, give me any other plan and I'll go with it, but right now you've got nothing else-"

Harry cut himself off abruptly, and stalked to the door. "I'll be in contact. Expect a report in a week." Harry walked out the door calmly, without looking behind him to see Fury's reaction, but was unable to stop himself from slamming it behind him.

He glared at an agent who was staring at him from the other end of the hall. "What are you looking at, mate?"

"Y-you're glowing, s-s-sir."

Harry looked down at himself, and saw that his hands had a faint green glow. "Never seen a mutant before then? Hmm?" Even at his most angry, Harry knew that Fury didn't want it to get out that Harry Potter the wizard was a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent. "I'm seventeen and still trying to control it. Fury's not happy that its taking so long. 'Killing someone is poor form, agent.'" Harry mimicked Fury's voice inexpertly, then looked up at the agent with a malicious smile. "Wanna help me practice?"

Harry smiled to himself as the agent swiftly turned away and continued the way he was going, not fully able to hide his terrified expression. "Good to know I still got it." Harry whispered to himself, heading towards the S.H.I.E.L.D. gym. He still needed to work on his physical fitness. He was looking forward to seeing what else muggles had come up with in the last ten years for exercising. He still remembered the hilarious sight of Aunt Petunia dressed in legwarmers and a leotard following a fitness tape on the TV.

* * *

 

Harry made his way into the S.H.I.E.L.D. training area, winding around the agents looking down on him for his apparent age, unassuming appearance. He mostly managed to ignore them, used to letting criticism just roll off him, and far past any issues he may have with his height or body. He was still wary of interacting with the agents though, as they were unlikely to want to get along with him.

Harry, however, met one set off eyes happily and waved across the room.

Clint Barton hesitantly waved back.

Harry walked over to the man, swiftly changing his plans for the afternoon.

"Barton! How are you?" Harry reached his hand out.

The archer gripped his hand firmly and pumped it up and down. "Good, Potter. You?"

"Fantastic! 'm feeling great." Harry looked around the archery range Barton was standing at. "What are you doing in here?"

"Training, Potter. This is the training area. What else would I be doing?" He replied sarcastically. "And I'd like to get back to it..." He trailed off meaningfully.

"Oh, right. Sure. That's what I'm here for. Would you mind if I just cast a spell on you. Only for monitoring. I want to see how your body reacts to physical activity. You wouldn't notice it at all." Harry looked up at the archer with wide eyes.

"Um ok."The archer looked hesitant, but Harry knew that he had been told by Fury to go along with whatever Harry needed. "Go for it. Do you need to actually watch me train?"

Harry drew his wand and, after discreetly casting a notice-me-not charm on their immediate area, set to casting the traditional set of healers monitoring spells. "No. You can go off and do your thing, and I'll do my thing. You just need to let me know when you finish so I can take down the spell and record the results." Barton nodded, and watched Harry's wand tip with some trepidation.

"Do you need to stab me with that or something? Stop waving it around before you take my eye out!"

Harry huffed a laugh, stowing his wand back in his holster. "Calm down. I'm all done. And look! Your eye is perfectly fine." Harry smiled. " How long do you think you'll be?"

"An hour or two. I'd been going for some time when you got here. You going to stay in the room?"

"Yeah. If I'm with someone, just come up to me, and I'll be able to take down the spell without any one noticing, okay?" Harry let Barton nod, before continuing. "Have fun." Harry grinned at the archer, then turned around, surveying the room trying to decide where to go. He could go to the traditional gym area and run on a treadmill, or one of the other fancy looking cardio machines, but decided against that. He wanted to work on a more specific skill rather than overall fitness. Maybe...

Harry's eyes caught on something which would be perfect. Knife throwing.

Making his way over to the throwing range, he watched the group of men already there. They were all very competent with the various sharp weapons they were handling, but Harry could see they were focusing on their aim more than anything else. Their conversation became audible to him as he got closer.

"...have to aim for the chest. Throwing at the head is mostly useless." A tall older man was telling the other two

"Useless? What are you on about. A knife hits someone in the head and they're out for the count." A skinny blond replied.

"Yeah. I know what to do in a fight. I been throwing knives since I was thirteen." A young, very handsome man drawled in an Italian accent.

"It's useless because if they dodge, you've lost a knife, and they have access to it, because it's closer to them than you. You're much less likely to miss if you aim for the torso." The older man said.

Harry saw a good opportunity to interject, and draw their attention to him. "I've personally always aimed for the stomach. It's too high to jump over, and they don't always have enough time to dodge under it." He shrugged. "That's just me though."

The three men turned their heads towards Harry as one. "What's a kid like you doing in S.H.I.E.L.D.?" The blond asked.

"Better question is what's Fury doing hiring kids like you? He run out of people willing to do his dirty work and has to turn to teenagers now?" The older man sneered.

"Fury hired me because I'm useful. I approached him, not the other way around. And I'm not a kid, I'm twenty." Harry replied indignantly, having no problems about lying to the agents about his age. "I'm Harry Potter. Nice to meet you."

Harry laughed internally as the agents all reached for their weapons, the Italian and older man for a gun and the blond for a knife on the table behind him. Even if they hadn't recognised his face, they still recognised his name. He would have to get Fury to change his status in their database.

"Didn't you hear me? Fury hired me. Why are you going for your weapons?" Harry made sure to look innocent and curious, giving no hint that he knew anything about what his name meant to them.

"Sorry, kid" The blond said. "You clearly haven't been fully updated yet. You have the same name as a man on S.H.I.E.L.D.'s watch list. We just had an instinctual reaction. The agents stowed their weapons, and stood awkwardly for a moment, not sure how to act after the, in their minds, over reaction. The Italian suddenly stepped forward and reached out his hand. "Adrian Marelli. Pleasures all mine. " Harry shook his hand firmly, then turned towards the other two men and raised and eyebrow.

The Italian stepped forward next, also with his hand outstretched. "Cliff Randall. Call me Cliff. Make any jokes about my name and I'll break your hand."

Harry smiled cheerfully "I'll keep that in mind. You keep away from Harry/hairy jokes and we'll be even."

"Hairy? What do you mean?" Adrian clearly didn't understand the joke.

"Americans like to think they're funny. Their horrible accent butchers my name so it sounds like hairy, and the amount of times I have heard that joke... God. It's horrible."

"Well on behalf of American's everywhere, I'll have to apologise. The name's Mackenzie. Al Mackenzie."

Harry grasped the older mans hand and immediately repressed a wince. This man was obviously determined to cow the new kid. Unfortunately for him, Harry had had a werewolf for a pseudo-godfather, and a half-giant for a friend. Nothing a human could do would be able to hurt him.

He smiled pleasantly at the man, something that had never failed to infuriate Malfoy. "Thanks. Nice to meet you. Now, you were talking knives, I believe."

"Yes. I was just telling these idiots not to aim for the head."Mackenzie gestured to the other two, but kept his head turned towards Harry. "And you seemed to agree with me."

"I do, mostly. In a fight, aiming for the head gives too much opportunity to dodge. But-" Here Harry turned towards the other two men, leaning towards them conspiratorially, "Aiming for the head in training means your aim is better over all." Harry stood up straight again, and turned fully towards Adrian. "Show me what knives you Americans deem worthy."

* * *

 

Two hours later, Harry was cheerfully chatting with Cliff and Adrian, Mackenzie having left a while before, stating that he had something to deal with back at FBI

"He's S.H.I.E.L.D.'s liaison to the FBI. He's pretty important around here. Has meetings with Fury occasionally. Think's he's top shit though." Adrian had told him, then winked. "Was nice to see you take him down a notch with your knife throwing."

Harry had always prided himself on his aim with knives. He figured it was beause being a wizard, which required superb aim with a wand. Most other wizards and witches he had trained with when becoming an Auror, had all had more problems learning how to actually throw a knife than learning how to aim one.

"Yeah. I'm talented like that." Harry replied with a shrug and a cheerful smile.

"More than talented, man. Your aim is insane."

Harry chuckled. "It's actually not talent. It's a whole ton of practice. My trainer had me throwing knives at a target for three months straight back when I was nineteen. You're the one with talent, mate." Harry gestured toward Cliff. He had been throwing a set of four knives over and over, and had managed to hit the exact same spot every time.

"Hah, thanks man, it's nothing really." Cliff looked like was going to continue, but stopped abruptly as he looked over Harry's shoulder.

Harry turned around swiftly, a switchblade held in his hand behind his back, but put it back in his pocket when he saw it was just Barton. "You all done then?"

"Yeah. I'm heading back to the tower. You should come over again soon." Barton tossed him a wink. "Tony's missing the only person gullible enough to keep looking at all his new inventions."

"Hey now, I take offense at that." Harry stepped forward to punch Barton on the arm, touching his wand tip to the archers hip as he did so, blocking the other two's from seeing with his body. He didn't know how high Cliff and Adrian were up the ladder, and didn't want to be the one to reveal the existence of magic if they didn't know. "At least I don't jump whenever Romanoff tells me to." Harry smiled, taking the bite out of his words, glad that Barton was able to take a joke from him.

Barton huffed a laugh and left, tossing a "See you round, Potter." over his shoulder as he went.

Harry turned back to the agents behind him, and raised an eyebrow at their shocked expressions. "What?" He asked curiously.

"You were just talking to the Clint Barton. The Avenger. And he invited you over to Tony Stark's tower. You have got to be kidding me."

"Well yeah. I'm just awesome like that." Harry smiled the cocky grin that he had flashed at journalist's cameras for years.

Cliff looked at him in awe, reminding Harry somewhat of the Creevy brothers back at Hogwarts. He was used to getting those sorts of looks by now, but he still wasn't all that comfortable having them aimed at him. He was saved from having to find a way to get the man to leave or calm down as his phone rang in his pocket. Cliff pulled it out, making excuses to leave as he did so, and promising to chat when he saw Harry next, then almost ran out of the room as he answered his phone. Harry only managed to hear his 'Hello sir' before the doors shut.

Harry turned to Adrian with a slight grimace on his face. "Ugh. Fanboys. Scary scary things."

"Get over yourself, man. He's just impressed by how well you handle a knife." Adrian shot back, an easy grin on his face, leading them over to the change rooms to get out of their sweaty clothes.

"I told you. I've had practice." Harry dismissed the praise with ease. He made his way over to the showers, stripping his clothes as he went and turned the hot water on, stepping under the the shower head as the steam began to rise around him.

"I know. You said so." Adrian paused, seemingly not about to continue, but then pressed on, his voice lowering a bit. "Do you have a lot of practice handling long things?" It took a moment for Harry to grasp the innuendo for what it was, but when he did, he laughed, then turned to face the Italian, standing under the shower next to him.

"That was the least smooth thing I have ever heard. Ever." Harry made sure to keep his reply light, as so not to offend Adrian, reaching out with his hand to push him lightly.

The Italian laughed, and swayed back then forwards from Harry's push. "I only had a moment to come up with it. I'll admit it wasn't my best line."

Harry narrowed his eyes at the man. "Were you just joking or hitting on me for real?" He asked curiously.

Adrian flushed slightly, although whether it was in embarrassment or from the heat Harry couldn't tell."If I said for real, would you be up for it? My house is only fifteen minutes away." He raised his eyebrows in question.

Harry tilted his head downward and looked up at Adrian through his eyelashes. He hadn't been with anyone for a while, definitely not since he left the magical world, and not for a couple of months before either, too busy getting everything set up for Protegat. Adrian was certainly attractive, had a gorgeous body, and was obviously confident, which were all things Harry looked for a lover, one night stand or not.

Additionally, Harry was fairly sure that the man had didn't have any expectations of him past tonight, and was only looking for a chance to have some fun. "I'd say I could show you some other things I'm good at."

"Oh god. Stop." It was Adrian's turn to laugh at Harry. He reached out his hand to push Harry back, but he dodged so that Adrian stumbled forward, ending up standing under Harry's shower head.

He stood awkwardly for a moment,clearly not sure what to do, but then bent his head down slightly to kiss Harry hungrily. It took them a moment to get the positioning right, Adrian's arm going around Harry's waist, and their legs slipping between each other, but Adrian's lips kept up a constant pressure on Harry's, his tongue coming out after a moment, and delving into Harry's mouth. Harry responded enthusiastically stroking Adrian's tongue with his own and raking his left hand down Adrian's chest, and across his tight abdomen, to grip his hardening cock. He stroked it loosely, enjoying the feeling of it swelling in his hand.

Adrian shuddered and stepped back, catching his breath as his spit-slick lips fell into a lazy grin. "Do you wanna come back to mine for some coffee?"

Harry smiled seductively, running his tongue over his upper lip. "I'm always up for coffee."

Adrian moaned softly and smashed his lips back against Harry's. Harry allowed himself to be pressed back into the wall, out of the spray of water, by Adrian's firm body, his hands twining into dark hair. He relaxed into the kiss and the slight catch of Adrian's chapped lips on his own. Adrian hit down harshly on his lower lip, then soothed it with his tongue, flicking it over the abused flesh. The grind of their wet bodies allowed their semi-hard erections to press together, and Harry groaned at the friction, then pulled Adrian's head away by tugging on his hair, and smiled at him mischievously.

"I'm not some whore. You want to fuck me, you get me to a bed." He put his hands on Adrian's firm chest and pushed him away, then turned off the water and walked over to the stack of towels in the corner. Harry dried himself off, then pulled his clothes on haphazardly, not planning on keeping them on for long. In his hurry to dry off, Harry had missed a few patches of water, and his white shirt had stuck to his chest. Harry saw Adrian's eye's were focused on his body and ran his hands over his torso, tweaking his nipples softly, then turned away and walked over to the entrance to the change room. He made sure to swing his hips slightly, then, once he reached the doorway, looked back over his shoulder. "You coming? I'm following you home, remember?"

Adrian groaned and practically ran out the doorway, grabbing Harry's hand and pulling him along. Harry smiled. Maybe the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents would be easier to get along with than he thought.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To forestall any protests, Adrian is not going to be Harry is paired with. That's going to be Steve. Adrian is, just as its presented in the fic, a one night stand. Do expect to see all the OC's in the chapter again. I have recently learned that there is a character in 'Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.' called Alphonso Mackenzie, which is obvs the same name as my character, but that is the only thing they have which is the same. He, like all my other S.H.E.I.L.D. agents, is 100% legit, according to the Marvel website, although I changed Adrian's name, if anyone cares.
> 
> Also, this is set in the Marvel Universe, so mutants exist, but I'm not going to be including any of the X-men or anything. They do exist, and may be mentioned, but will never appear as characters in any way.
> 
> Finally, hope you like the semi-sex. Anything more explicit is only gonna be written when Harry is with Steve,


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some chats about sex and Steve is a little bit of a homophobe

Harry strode into Avenger's tower with his hair still wet from the shower and hickies all down his neck.

Adrian had left before breakfast, immediately after getting out of the shower, professing that he didn't want to out stay his welcome, but that he was always up for 'coffee' if Harry wanted to do it again.

Harry had accepted the offer for what it was, but resolved to only remain friends with the man. Having a casual fuck-buddy, while physically satisfying, always ended in an emotional Bombarda and Harry didn't want to deal with that, especially as they were both agents in one of the most competent spy agencies ever. He also didn't want to piss Fury off, and having a lover's spat was a sure way to manage that.

The over-large penthouse seemed abandoned, and unnervingly bare to Harry who was used to seeing at least three Avengers sitting around at all times, and so he hesitated for a moment at the threshold.

"JARVIS." Harry called hesitantly. He still wasn't fully comfortable with the idea of an AI, no matter how many times Stark had explained it.

"Yes, Mr Potter?"

"Could you tell Agent Barton that I would like to speak to him? Tell him I have some results from his testing yesterday."

"Agent Barton is asleep at the moment, Mr Potter. I will inform him of your arrival when he wakes up."

"Thanks, JARVIS." Harry replied, scrunching his nose slightly. What to do while he waited? Harry decided his first mission would be to make tea for himself. Tea first, work and annoying questions later. He wound his way towards the kitchen, which he had a standing invitation to since his third visit, but paused when he came across Stark, sitting at the large dining table. Stark looked up from the strange metallic objects and wires he had been working on and looked over Harry with a strangely assessing look, before his eyes fixed on something on Harry's neck.

"Well, what do we have here." Stark leered. "Someone got lucky last night."

"Stark." Harry sighed, but was interrupted before he had a chance to continue.

"I've told you. Call me Tony. Everyone does. Even the press, so don't think it's a privilege or anything."

Harry smiled slightly. He loved Stark's easy going attitude, and how he was able to get anyone to relax within minutes of meeting them. He had an undeniable aura of charisma that he knew how to work to devastating effect. Harry could see how the man managed to manipulate the media to print whatever he wanted them to print. It was masterful really. And Harry wasn't even sure if the man knew he was doing it or not. He leaned toward the former, but sometimes the man would appear so clueless, like he truly had no idea what he was doing.

"And I've told you, Stark. I went to a posh British boarding school. I called everyone except my best friends by their last names. Then I went into the Aurors where everyone was called by the last name. I even began to call my best friend Ron, Weasley. Just accept it. I'll make an effort, but it won't change anything.

Anyway." Harry smiled wolfishly. "I did get lucky. Don't know why that's any of your business though? You jealous?"

Harry's grin widened as Stark immediately scoffed. "Jealous? Me? Ha. I've had more women than you can imagine." He boasted. Harry would have been offended by the tone, but had learnt, not long after working with the Avengers, that this was Tony's natural state of being. Harry assumed it was the product of growing up in a rich home, as most of the purebloods he had attended school with still had the same tone.

Harry smirked at Stark. "I've surely had more men though."

The billionaire laughed throwing out a "Touché" as he did so. Harry only managed a moment for chuckling himself at the immaturity of their small pissing contest. Neither of them noticed Rogers standing in the middle of the living room in front of them, and brought their hands up to run through their hair, although Stark did it to try and put it back into order, while Harry did it as a matter of habit.

When Harry did manage to notice the captain, he smiled at him. "Morning Rogers. How are you? Tea?"

Harry moved over to the counter before Rogers had a chance to reply. He didn't even bother to ask Stark; the man was American through and through and drank only coffee, and, judging from the empty cups scattered on the table around him, had had quite a few already. He put the kettle on the stove and managed to locate the tea in one of the cupboards. He put down two cups on the counter and glanced at Rogers who had yet to make a reply. He frowned slightly at the other's peculiar silence. Rogers was, understandably, quite old-fashioned; very polite, frank at times, often very formal and always presentable. This silence was uncharacteristic.

Harry actually liked Rogers. He felt an odd sort of companionship with the old soldier; they were both shoved into this loud and messy world and had to learn to live in it. Rogers more so than Harry but he had done a good job of adjusting to the modern world, and yet, his background constantly shone though his disciplined military persona. He reminded Harry of the people he had left in the wizarding world, so much in fact, that he was sometimes plagued with pangs of homesickness by just being with the man.

He wondered if Rogers felt the same about him. If he thought Harry was like a small refuge from the modern world, like an equal whose social conventions made sense and whose behavior was familiar.

Harry drew his attention away from the cup of tea he was making, and looked up at Rogers, as he had yet to reply to Harry's greeting. He saw that the man was still standing in the middle of the middle room. He hadn't moved an inch.

"Rogers? Are you okay?" Harry questioned.

"Wha- Yes. Fine. Thanks, Potter. How are you?"

"Good thanks." Harry replied slowly. "Are you sure you're okay? You seemed pretty out of it."

"Yes, truly. I am all fine. I was just… shocked by what you said."

Harry thought back to what he and Stark were talking about as he handed Rogers tea over. "What? Sex?" Harry smiled slightly awkwardly. "People talk about it much more openly now days. I'm surprised you haven't heard Stark talk about it before, being what he is and all." Harry joked, tossing a grin at Stark, who just nodded, but looked as confused as Harry felt.

Rogers however didn't laugh. "No, um. No. It's not sex. Tony talks about it often enough. I'm used to it. It's just..." He trailed off

Harry frowned slightly. He wasn't sure if maybe he had committed some social faux pas in the super-soldiers eyes. Stark hadn't seemed to have a problem with the topic of conversation, but Harry knew by now not to judge the norm by the billionaire's standards. Harry nevertheless looked at Stark to see if he had any idea about what his team mate had a problem with.

"Actually Harry… I think I know what Capiscle is on about." Stark said, slowly. "I don't know about wizards, but back in the thirties and fourties, for us certainly, homosexuality wasn't considered normal. Hell, it was illegal. That's it, isn't it, Steve?" Stark turned to Rogers.

"Uh... yes." He looked apologetically at Harry. "That's it…I was um.. yes.. confronted."

"Confronted?" Harry said, as Rogers lapsed back into an awkward silence. "That's fine. Wizard's are more aware of gays, and it was definitely never illegal, but it's frowned upon because gays can't have children, technically."

"Technically?" Stark queried.

"I mean there's always adoption, but those kids are never of the same bloodline, and in a society completely focused on blood... Being gay isn't something you talk about." Harry let out a slightly bitter laugh. "Being bisexual, and experimenting, is completely fine though, as long as you marry a woman in the end." Harry had figured out in his very early twenties that he was bisexual, with more of a leaning towards men, but he had been happily married to Ginny by that point, and wasn't going to divorce her over that. They had had a perfectly comfortable marriage at that point, and had been expecting a child. A boy, James Sirius. Harry had planned on telling his wife about his sexuality after the birth, as he figured she deserved to know, but had never had the chance. Ginny, and the baby boy had died in childbirth. That, truly, was the catalyst for Harry deciding to find a way to hide the magical world.

"Is everything fine, then Rogers?"

"Oh. No. Yes. Of course. I apologise for my actions." Rogers steadfastly stared at his mug during his apology.

"No worries, mate. No problem at all." Harry turned to face Stark. "Now, Stark. Tell me, because I know you have this information stashed somewhere, what kind of research S.H.I.E.L.D. did into magic."

* * *

Harry was very relieved when Clint Barton finally came up to the communal level of Avenger's tower. He had spent a very awkward half hour making overly polite small talk with Rogers, while Stark interrupted with very unhelpful comments every few minutes, while they waited for the archer to wake up.

"Hey, Potter." Barton greeted. "What do you need me for? You saw me only yesterday."

"Hi Barton. I have your results actually. I think I'm mostly finished with you." Harry grinned up at the man as he made himself a cup of coffee.

"Awesome." Harry told himself that the man would have been more excited if he had already had coffee, but then gave up on deluding himself and accepted that Stark and Banner would be the only Avengers looking forward to hearing about his research. "What's can your magical tests tell you about me then?" Barton grabbed an apple from the fruit bowl in the middle of the kitchen and sat down at the table across from Harry.

Harry reached into his hoodie pocket and pulled out a shrunken roll of parchment and his wand, and enlarged the parchment before rolling it out on the table in front of him.

Stark leant over from his deat next to Harry, and tried to read Harry's writing.

"What the hell does this say? Do you wizards have some funky type of writing us mere mortals can't read?"

"Nah. It's the written form of parseltongue. Snake language." Harry clarified at the confused looks.

"Snakes have a language? Like an understandable, comprehensive language? And wizards managed to work it out enough to teach it? That's incredible."

Harry laughed at Stark's awed expression. "No, unfortunately. Snakes are idiots. All they care about is food and warmth. Their brains are too small to comprehend any abstract thoughts at all. Some magical breeds, and the really large muggle breeds can express themselves more eloquently, but they're still pretty stupid. Parseltongue is a genetic magical skill from the Slytherin family. One of the Slytherins years ago created a set of runes that had enchantment cast on them that meant that only Parselmouths could understand it. I use it because I'm the only Parselmouth left in the world, so my notes are very very secure."

"Say something in it." Stark demanded.

"I can't without a snake in front of me. I'll find one in Central Park or something during the week and bring it next time if you are really interested." Harry raised an eyebrow in question at Stark. Really he didn't want to speak to a snake in front of anyone, because it was, as Ron always described it, bloody creepy. He had been told by Blaise Zabini, at a Ministry function a few years after the war, that everyone, even Slytherins, found it unnerving. Harry was sure that the Avengers, no matter how used to the unnatural they were, would also find the snake language disturbing.

"Mmhmm. I want to record it and see if I can create a translator, like snake to human and human to snake. It would be the first animal to human translator ever. Which would be really cool, even if it isn't marketable."

Harry smiled at Stark's excitement, he was practically bouncing in his seat, and nodded his head. "Don't try and speak it if you do manage though. You can speak some words, but some meant to be pronounced by human vocal cords, and others, I've been told, sound exactly the same. It just sounds like English when I speak it, see?"

Stark nodded, but before he had a chance to reply, Barton interrupted. "This is really cool and all, but can you tell me about my results. I wanna know what funky magic stuff you've been able to come up with."

Harry turned to face the archer, and saw, out of the corner of his eye, Rogers shift uncomfortably in his seat for the sixth time in half an hour. Harry still didn't want to deal with it however, so he just let the man stew in his discomfort. If he wanted to get up he was perfectly able to.

"Right. So I was looking at you because you have too much talent with your bow and as an agent to be wholly muggle. You see that in squibs sometimes. Squibs are non-magicals born to a magical family." Harry explained. "Some are very intelligent, others are very talented at instruments, and others, like you, and very capable physically, abnormally so. The problem is, is that every person like this, with any hint of a magical core but living in the muggle world, was met by an official from their government over the last couple of months and asked if they wanted to come through the barrier, or stay here and have any ability to speak of the magical world blocked.

"You weren't. And I wanted to know why." Harry looked back down at his scroll to gather his thoughts. "You didn't have any knowledge of the magical world before joining S.H.I.E.L.D. did you?" He asked suddenly.

"No." Barton replied. "Why?"

"Because I found out that you have enough magic to be a functioning, if weak member of wizarding society. Not enough to get into Hogwarts, but you would have been able to use a wand."

"Well, once you would have. Somehow, as a child you managed to channel all of your magic out of your core and directly into your body."

"Wait." Stark interrupted. "Isn't the core in the body. Like, isn't that the point of the whole core thing? You channel the magic from within you, right?"

Harry tried to work out how to answer a question that many great wizards had tried to answer before him. He settled on a very simplified explanation, detailing only the parts that related to Barton's case. "Magic is like the soul. It exists, we know it exists, and we can see the by product of it, but it can't be physically seen in the body. Ghosts can be, and spells can be, but in the body, although we know it is there, we can't actually find it." Harry saw that Stark was preparing to ask Harry another set of questions, and postponed it by pulling out another roll of parchment and a quill. "Write down your questions Stark, and I'll answer them later, ok? I want to finish with Barton some time in the next hour."

Stark nodded, keeping his lips firmly pressed together, but scoffed at Harry's writing implements, then took a stylus out of his pocket and pulled up a screen right on the table and began to write. Truly Harry didn't want to answer Stark's questions, but figured if the man wrote them down, he could take them away with him and write out the answers, or bring back a few books so the genius could find the answers himself. Harry put the parchment back in his pocket and started fiddling with the quill, running it through his hands and playing with the soft feather.

"What you did, Barton." Harry turned back to face the archer. "Was make your magic manifest in your body. I am able to trace the magical... channels, I guess you could call them, through your muscles and bones like I would be able to with a spell. And you did it completely subconsciously, as a child. It's incredible!" Harry exclaimed. He knew that none of the men at the table would have any understanding of how exciting this example of accidental magic was to Harry, but he could still be excited himself.

"This is something that has never been seen before, either on a permanent basis, or done without a spell. Most people's bodies can't sustain this level of magic running through them for any extended period of time, but as far as I can tell you've had it there for most of your life.

"It also explains why you weren't detected by the Wizarding World. You technically don't have a magical core. At all. All your magic is in your body, meaning that there is nothing for it to detect. My first day of tests came up with you as a perfectly normal muggle, and it wasn't until yesterday during the physical that I ran on you that I worked it out." Harry grinned widely. "Mate, this is so fascinating, you have no idea. Does this all make sense?"

"Yeah, mostly. I mean, I don't get why this is so cool for you, really, but for me, it's awesome. I'm a wizard. Like a real, broomstick riding, potion making wizard."

"Sort of." Harry interjected.

"Sort of." Barton conceded.

"Wait." Rogers finally spoke up. "Broomstick riding? Potion making? Are you being serious?"

"Deadly." Harry snorted at his private joke. He had made it once, by accident, when Ron had asked him the same question about five years ago, and they had both continued to do so ever since then. "I had potions class at school, and played on the school Quidditch team. Quidditch is a sport played on broomsticks. It's the most intense game ever. It wasn't uncommon for us, at a school level, to have multiple injuries and broken bones, during a game. Bloody brilliant though." Harry grinned widely remembering his days on the Gryffindor team. He still flew from time to time, but had yet to find somewhere in the muggle world that he could do so without anyone seeing. He planned to get out into the desert at sometime soon, and just fly there, kilometres and kilometres away from the closest person.

"Almost every stereotype you've ever heard of about wizards or witches is real, even if it has been changed a bit."

"I see." Harry would have continued to wax lyrical about the wonders of the wizarding world, but Steve's lips turned down, and he went back to his tea, which would have been cold by now, and steadfastly ignored Harry. Instead of making a fuss about it, Harry turned to Stark.

"I'm on a mission for Fury, as I'm sure you already know." Stark nodded. "So you know that all my information is going to be passed through you?" Stark nodded again. "Have you worked out a secure way for Fury to get my reports then?"

"Of course. Genius remember. I had four different pieces of software already created. You'll be giving it to me when you come by each week, yeah."

"Is this mission related to the one that you had before? Where Tasha killed your target before you got to him?" Barton asked.

"It is. I think, and Fury agrees, that someone has infiltrated S.H.I.E.L.D. and I was appointed to deal with it." Harry hadn't been appointed, really, but he didn't need the agent to know that. "I'll be hanging around headquarters pretty often from now on. I'm pretending to be an unfortunately named new recruit."

"Unfortunately named?" Barking queried.

"Yeah. Agents are prone to drawing weapons on a kid named Harry Potter, even if he isn't, in their minds, the real Harry Potter. If I manage to dispel the awkward tension that arises immediately after this, which I always do, then they are more likely to be comfortable around me, and tell me things they wouldn't have before." Harry smirked. "Helps that I'm not planning on being a monk either. Pillow talk between agents is always... informative."

Rogers stood up abruptly. "I need to train. I'll see you next week, right Potter?"

Harry nodded his head. "Yeah, I'll come by next Saturday I think. One thirtyish. Now I have to work properly at S.H.I.E.L.D., I can't take time off to come here."

Rogers nodded his head and left the kitchen, walking across the room to call the lift. Harry took a sip of his, now lukewarm, tea.

"Oh. I just realised. Some agents saw me talking to you, Barton, yesterday, and know that I have some sort of standing invitation to the tower. We need an excuse for that, because as far as the wider world, and especially the S.H.I.E.L.D. database, knows, none of you know some twenty year old called Harry Potter. Any ideas?"

"Why don't you be Banner's relative? A distant cousin or something?" Stark offered. "You have a similar cheekbone and nose structure and you're both shortish. We can say you're mother was his... second cousin? Yeah, second cousin is far enough away that its reasonable, but close enough for him to have some sort of relationship with you."

"Why don't we say he's your second cousin, Tony? He looks a lot more like you than he does Bruce." Barton asked.

"Because I am far more famous than he is, and if I had some long lost cousin it would have come out sooner. Additionally Starks have been only children for the last few generations. It's just not plausible."

Harry smiled slightly at Stark's explanation. It reminded him somewhat of Hermione during their school years, always five steps ahead of him and Ron. He hadn't seen her, or any of his friends from the Wizarding World for years now. All his time had been taken up by research and travel, and they had just drifted apart. While he missed their presence in his life, he knew that leaving for the muggle world was for the best. An immortal being in the Wizarding World would have eventually been taken by the Unspeakables for research, no matter their position in society.

Harry stood up from his seat and took his mug over to the sink, rinsing it and resting it upside down to let it drain, then turned back to Barton and Stark. "I'd better be off. I want to read through the case files you sent me from Fury, Stark, and I need to sort out my paperwork and life story as junior agent Harry Potter, second cousin once removed of Bruce Banner." Harry ran his hand through his hair, as he realised that he had a fair bit to get through that day.

"I'll let Bruce know." Stark smirked. "You're going to have to start calling him by his first name you know. Family member's never use last names."

Harry pulled at face at Stark, letting his teenaged mask slip on for a moment.

"Fine. You let Uncle Bruce know about his new position in my life. I'll see you both next week."

Harry nodded in response to their goodbyes and walked over to the lift and pressed the button to call it. He had a day to create a new life story and work out how to act like a twenty year old again. A well-adjusted twenty year old, not Harry Potter as a twenty year old.

Fury had better give him a raise for this.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry meets his new team, and realises that being new sucks no matter where you are.

Harry apparated to S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters, appearing in an alleyway a few blocks away, his motorbike in a firm grip. It was a sleek, black beauty, made for speed and surprisingly steady in the air. He had bought it a decade ago and added his own spells and enchantments on it. The spells had he found in a book called Marauder's Grimoire in the Potter vault and he was certain it was the same spells which had been used on his late godfather's bike.

He had been forced to leave his broom in the magical world, but he could never do away with flying. Not completely. With an invisibility enchantment and a silencer, he could fly even in the middle of a city, without being afraid of seen by camera's or picked up by sattelites. His only had to remember to keep a watch out for pigeons. There was nothing better than doing a couple of loops and twirls as you speed over the cars locked in rush hour traffic.

He drove the two hundred yards to headquarter and drew his clearance ID card through the slot in the panel. There weren't many agents who drove to work, it was mostly the big shots who bothered with a car, and he quickly found a parking lot in the massive garage. He pulled off his helmet, grabbed the keys and made his way over to the elevator, swinging his helmet around as he walked.

The charade felt a bit silly, but he had overslept this morning and didn't have time to drive to work, only choice left had been to apparate, and off course he couldn't arrive without a mode of transportation. He had learnt early on that S.H.I.E.L.D. agents were quick to notice irregularities, like the fact that he arrived at work without using the underground, car or a bike. Having the bike every morning solved that problem. Even if he had to deal with the rumours that he had to have broken every speed limit and traffic regulation there was to get to work on time through rush hour traffic.

He walked to his newly assigned locker, in the hall all the new agents were meant to meet in, and stashed his helmet, leather jacket and bag in it, checking quickly that he had everything he would need that day stashed on his body somewhere.

HaHarry looked around at the other men and women around him, taking note of their postures and body language to determine among the other new recruits who he thought would be able to make it, and those that couldn't. Around him the other recruits were doing the same and he quietly observed them, finding their body language and stances resembled that of the aurors back in the auror department. Using that knowledge he tried to determine who was going to pass the tough recruitment process; S.H.I.E.L.D. accepted only the very best after all.

Surprisingly, Harry thought, most of them would be able to. They were all confident twenty-something's, exceptionally fit, and most of them had knives or tasers clipped to their belts or concealed in their boots. The ones that didn't were the ones that Harry was sure wouldn't be able to handle the high intensity work at S.H.I.E.L.D. and would be chivvied off to work for the CIA or FBI. They were all good, but some of them just weren't good enough. Fury only took the best, and some people, no matter how hard they worked, just wouldn't cut it.

"Right, newbies." A tall, muscled man shouted into the hallway they were all milling around in. "Get your asses into this room and sit down." Harry strolled toward the room, entering last, as the rest of the junior agents had practically run to be the first in the room, out of fear or anticipation Harry didn't know.

Harry looked around the room, at the rows of cheap plastic seats, stacks of files off to the side, and another door leading out of the room, before ducking suddenly as he felt a hand come up behind him. He felt the open hand brush just over the top of his head, and twisted around to look up at the owner, positioning his body to allow the imprint of the knife strapped to his lower back to show up on his shirt.

"Nice, kid. Good reflexes." The man complimented, flicking his eyes down to Harry's lower back for a moment, acknowledging the implied threat. "But go and sit down. I only have fifteen with you before you all separate out, and I don't have time to be dealing with your swaggering."

"Yes, sir." Harry replied, walking swiftly to the last empty seat and sitting down.

The man walked to the front of the room, swinging around to face them with his legs planted shoulder width apart.

"My name is Samuel Robertson, and I've been unlucky enough to be assigned to deal with you all. S.H.I.E.L.D. for all its effectiveness, accepts only about a dozen new agents a year, because we only take the best of the best. And as you can see there are more than a dozen in this room." He gave a nasty grin. "So don't think you're in just because you're here. We are always on the lookout for people to hire, but the time it would take to make sure you're up to scratch individually would be a huge waste of time. So we bring you all in one go to make the weeding process more effective."

"You are all here because you caught our attention, and passed our tests, and have the ability to become effective S.H.I.E.L.D. agents." Here Agent Robertson, glared around at all of them. "This does not mean that you will make it. If you don't we are perfectly capable of taking you out of the agent roster and moving you to another department or out of the agency altogether. So don't get cocky.

"You are going to be spending the next couple of months under the supervision of a handler, who will tell you what to do, whether it be to deliver paper, or follow an agent on a mission. They say jump, you jump. Got it?"

Harry nodded, as did the other agents in the room. He was very amused by this speech. It was very similar to the one he had been given with the other trainee's upon finishing Auror training, and entering the Auror corps officially, although the Auror giving the speech had spent most of it glaring at Harry, as if to make sure that he knew that even though he was Harry Potter, he wouldn't be afforded any special attention or responsibilities. Harry had taken it in his stride then, and did the same now, laughing internally at the not so subtle intimidation tactics Agent Robertson was using. He already had a job ar S.H.I.E.L.D., not that anyone knew that, so he didn't need to worry about not being 'up to scratch'.

"Right. Now your handlers will be reporting to me, so I can assess you all equally, but when your trial period is over, they will remain your handler until you retire. Or die.

"Now, there are four of you to a handler, and we've split you up already so, by last name, could you go where I direct you. You three, over there." He gestured to the back wall. "you three over there." He pointed to the wall to the left of their seats. "And the rest of you, stay where you are. There's an odd number of people so you're going to remain as a three until we hire someone else." Harry looked around at the other two junior agents sitting with him. One was a tall, buff red-head, around twenty five, and was one of the ones Harry had picked as not being able to deal with it. He was clearly used to getting his way because of his size, and hadn't yet learned that there were other ways to deal with things aside from muscle. He would learn though. Maybe. The other was a younger looking man, around twenty-one, only two years older than Harry was pretending to be, with a weedy chin but a wiry body. Clearly he was the opposite of the red-head. He had most likely been picked on during primary school and the early years of high school, but had dedicated the later years to learning how to defend himself, and had managed to come out on top. Harry was pretty sure he would have been a Slytherin, and marked him as someone to watch.

The other door into the room, opened and in walked two men and a woman who were obviously their handler's. Harry let a wide grin momentarily grace his face as he saw who one of the men was. He turned his head away quickly before Adrian had a chance to recognise him.

"Right, newbies." Robertson called. "I have other things to be doing, you over on the left, you follow Agent Daniels here." He pointed to the woman. "you three at the back you're with Agent Kruscha" He pointed to the other man. "And you sitting down, go over to Agent Marelli. You have the rest of the day to get to know each other and learn what you're job is gong to entail, and tomorrow you start for real. Good luck." And with that Agent Robertson strode from the room without a backward glance.

The other agents led their group's from the room, picking up a pile of files from the side table as they did so. Adrian made his way over to the table, but instead of picking up the last pile, walked behind the table to sit in the chair, calling over to them to bring their chairs and sit down on the opposite side of the table.

Harry made sure his had a neutral expression and picked up his chair and sat down directly in front of Adrian, but was disappointed when Adrian had no visible reaction at seeing him.

"Right, you three. I'm your handler for the rest of your time at S.H.I.E.L.D., so you're all going to need to learn to trust me. Or not. My job, either way, is to tell you how and when to do your job. Any questions?"

Harry shook his head, as did the other junior agents. Adrian clapped his hands once and smiled. "Great. Now, I know all your names, but none of you know each others. You are all going to be working very closely for the next little while, and may even be partnered once you become full agents. I want you to state your names and ages."

Harry turned to the other junior agents and gestured to the red-head to go first.

"Christian Smith, twenty four." He stated in a New York accent, and Harry was slightly disappointed that he hadn't guessed his age properly.

The other junior agent spoke up next. "Damien Kingston, twenty one." They both looked at Harry.

"Harry Potter. Nineteen." The age he had been when Fury originally offered him a job in his Agency. Harry smirked internally as he heard Adrian let out a small cough, which would have been barely audible if the room wasn't silent. He looked at him, putting on the defensive face typical of a teenager. "What? Do you think I'm too young to be good enough? Because I am. I was chosen so young because I am good enough. So you can-"

"Harry, shut up." Adrian interrupted good-naturedly. "And take that expression of your face. You are clearly more mature than a teenager if S.H.I.E.L.D. hired you."

Harry dropped the act and smiled back at Adrian. "Yeah, well. It was worth a shot. And the other two clearly believed it." Harry waved his hand at the other two agents, who were valiantly holding on to their impassive expressions, but the widening of their eyes betrayed their surprise.

"Wait. Hold up. You two know each other?" Smith asked.

Adrian spoke before Harry had a chance. "We met last week. He was here at headquarters, and we had a chance to talk. I assumed he was older because of how talented he was. With knives." He corrected hastily. "I met him in the training room, and he was throwing knives at a target like he'd been doing it for years. I had no idea a teenager could be so good at it.

Harry smirked. "I spent some time on the streets when I was younger, around, like thirteen, and picked up the skill, and after I was taken into care just continued to practice. It's amazing how much practice you can get when you spend as much time as I did locked in your room." Harry had no qualms about getting caught but he knew how to add just the right amount of truth in his answers to make it believable

"Bullshit." Smith said, with a smirk on his face. "That might be true. But there's something else." The red head looked between Harry and Adrian a few times, and then his eyes widened as he looked at Harry's and he snapped his head back to Adrian. "You fucked him didn't you?"

"You're an agent. Act like one." Adrian snapped back immediately. "If you work out something from body language, you don't just blurt it out like that. You report it back to your supervisor, and use it as black mail later."

Harry just smiled lazily, outwardly calm despite his inner mortification. "We did. How could you tell?"

"It wasn't that hard really. When you walked over here you expected some reaction from Agent Marelli, which you didn't get. He didn't have any reaction at all, like he was purposefully controlling any he might have. There's also the fact that he keeps looking at the hickie that's just above your collar. Add that it up, and it's fairly obvious."

It wasn't that obvious. Not at all. But Harry reminded himself that he was working with S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, and they had been hired for a reason. They were the best, and that was better than most people could even begin to contemplate. Underestimating Smith as he had was dangerous and stupid. It showed that he was losing his touch, and relaxing far too much into the teenager act he was putting on. He only had to pretend to be slightly oblivious, not actually miss details that could be important.

"We did. Once. A few days ago. It was a one night stand, and I thought Harry was just visiting or something and never expected to see him again. It's not like we are dating or anything." Adrian explained.

"Anyway, now that you've all learned far more about me and my sex life than I'm comfortable with, we're going to move on.

"As your handler it is my job to tell you what you need to do for your job. As junior agents, you don't have very interesting lives to look forward to for the next couple of months. You'll be mostly responsible for administration; filing, delivering files or documents, organising rosters, things like that. If you're lucky you may get to follow along a more senior agent on a mission, but you'll be expected to stay way out of the way, and most likely won't get to see that much anyway.-

Harry was sure that Adrian was going to continue, but Kingston interrupted him, speaking for the first time since introducing himself. "What the fuck?! I agreed to join S.H.I.E.L.D. because it's a spy agency. I was pulled from the special forces for this. I spent three years in hell over in Afghanistan, and now you want me to go back to delivering fucking paper? That's bullshit."

Harry privately agreed, but instead of saying something, coughed to draw Adrian's attention for a moment, then cast legilimens silently, to drop into his mind.

He swept past the burst of thoughts meeting him had brought to the front of Adrian's mind, and moved on to his memories relating to being a handler.

" _-to take you off the active roster, Agent Marelli._ " A doctor was explaining in a soft tone.

" _You're going to be responsible for three new agents. You're going to be their handler._ " Adrian sitting in Fury's office.

Then him sitting in what Harry assumed to be his home, looking though some files, and his shock at Harry's face.

And then, what Harry wanted to see. A briefing just this morning, with Samuel Robertson standing at the front of the room. " _They're going to have the most boring and tedious jobs for a month. Filing, delivers, you name it. Whatever you want, so long as you try to get them to crack. They need to learn to follow orders or they don't get to stay._ "

Harry pulled out of Adrian's mind. He had seen enough.

It had only been a second since he had coughed, so he turned to Kingston, as if he had just been clearing his throat. "Don't worry. I'm sure things will get better soon. I'm pretty sure S.H.I.E.L.D. is just like... hazing us, I guess. You know, making sure we can cop it.

Harry was very surprised, and slightly worried by the volatility of Kingston's emotions, as his face immediately smoothed from its previous anger into a calm expression.

"Well then. I can deal with that. I was in the army. I can deal with a little hazing." He sneered at Adrian, as if in challenge.

Harry exchanged a glance with Smith, seeing that the other man was also slightly worried about the third junior agent in their little group.

* * *

 

It was only Harry's second week working undercover at S.H.I.E.L.D., and he was already, as the teenager he was pretending to be would say, totally over it.

He had spent his first week delivering and ferrying paper between agents, and had only this week branched out. He was now taking some of the less sensitive paper work to places all over the city, either to FBI and CIA offices, to some businesses, or occasionally to an agent waiting in a street or cafe somewhere who was acting as a middleman.

It was tiresome, especially for someone like him who was used to action. Additionally, in the past, when ever he had been dealing with paperwork, Harry had at least been allowed to read it. Admittedly, his finely honed sense of curiosity was practically burning with all the sensitive information that had read by magically opening then resealing the envelopes, but not being able to share it, or even let any one know he knew about it.

In the past he had always had someone, whether it was a Hermione or Ron, the portriat of Dumbledore he had kept in his sitting room, or one of the small garden snakes that lived around his house. Although the latter were too unintelligent to really understand anything, so Harry had mainly used them to vent. But now he didn't have anyone, like his early childhood, and it was a disconcerting shift.

Right now he was on his way back from the CIA, after delivering a bunch of files for Alphonso Mackenzie, the S.H.I.E.L.D.-CIA liason.

Harry was lucky to have not met the man at the scene of his disastrous attempted interrogation of Steven Davis, the man who had been assassinated by Agent Romanoff before he even entered the house. Mackenzie had come to look through Davis' paperwork with a few members of the CIA as well as S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, because there had been suspicions that the Liberator's had been working with revolutionaries in Syria and Iran. Harry had left the scene by then, but only because he was reporting to Fury about his suspicions about an infiltration in his ranks. His whole mission could have been disabled if he had left only fifteen minutes later.

But of course it hadn't, and Harry was able to cultivate a relationship with the man. Because of Mackenzie's high position within the S.H.I.E.L.D., Harry figured he could occasionally skim his mind to see if he had noticed anything suspicious. He didn't want to do that for a while however, because the man had a hint of magic around him, perhaps from a wizard a few generations up his family tree, and although he was clearly a squib, the man still might be able to detect any intrusion into his mind.

Harry had run into 'Al', fairly often over the past two weeks, because of how often he delivered files to and from the Agency. All of them were required to go through the liaison, so that he had knowledge of everything pertinent to his position. It was the same with the FBI liaison.

S.H.I.E.L.D. had a fairly open relationship with the upper levels of the Agency. They were kept updated on the less sensitive cases that were ongoing, informed them about the successes and failures of missions overseas, and occasionally Fury would meet with the Director to organise collaborative missions.

It was Mackenzie's job to keep that line of communication open and friendly, and to soothe any ruffled feathers.

Harry found the man to be competent and assured, and in line with his harsh nature, had a biting wit.

Harry often found himself drawn into conversation with Mackenzie for a few moments whenever he dropped by his office.

"Hey, sir."

"Hello, Agent." That was another reason Harry liked the man, he didn't refer to Harry as Junior Agent like everyone else in S.H.I.E.L.D. did, although it was odd for a man who Harry had been told was a strict adherent to any and all rules and regulations.

"So I dropped off the Nightingale, Gaunt and Postcard files, and have some here for you to look through. And there's two things that you need to sign before it goes to Fury." Harry reached into the bookbag he had taken to carrying around, and flipped through the collection of paper's and files he had stored there that he had yet to deliver. He pulled out one of the files, which he had put at the front for easy access. "Here, this one. It just paperwork detailing the S.H.I.E.L.D. missions you have assigned CIA agents to." Harry flicked his eyes down the list. "There certainly are a lot them. Why's that?"

"Because the missions keep getting messed up, and I need to go and fix them. Fury's been slipping recently. Wrong orders, sending agents to the wrong place. It's embarrassing, especially for those of us that report to other agencies."

Harry just hummed non-commitedly, while rooting though his bag for the other file Mackenzie needed to sign. He didn't want to agree with Mackenzie, because truly did like Fury, but the liaison was under the impression that he had never had any contact with the Director, and so had no reason to disagree. If asked Harry would just push it off as not wanting to insult his employer openly.

Huffing out a sigh of exasperation, Harry pulled out the whole pile and spread it out on Mackenzie's office.

"Here, help me look. One of them a agent transfer form. One of the junior agents has already dropped out, and asked to be shifted to another Agency." Ordinarily Harry wouldn't let anyone look at any of the files he had in his bag as they were all confidential, or had sensitive information, but these had all already been through Mackenzie's hands, or would in the near future.

Harry quickly began to flick through the files, Mackenzie doing the same. It wasn't long before the senior agent was waving a small stack of paper under Harry's nose. "Is this it?"

Harry pulled his head back a bit to catch a glimpse of the words on the page, and nodded when he recognised the header. "Yeah, that's it sir. See the post it notes? That's where you need to sign."

"Thank you, Agent Potter. I won't keep you longer, because I see you have quite a bit to be doing. I'll take this by Fury later."

Harry smiled at Mackenzie. "Thanks, sir." He collected the files back into one pile, and stuffed them back into his bag, and called a farewell over his shoulder as he left the office.

He had just made it down the hall to his next destination, when his new phone rang.

It had appeared in his letterbox two weeks ago, with a note from Stark telling him to keep it, and make use of it. Harry answered the call, and pressed the phone to his ear.

"Hello." He greeted.

"Hello." A voice replied. "Is this Harry Potter?"

"It is. Who's calling?" Harry asked warily.

"Bruce. Bruce Banner."

"Oh right. Of course. I can't believe I didn't recognise your voice, Uncle Bruce."He glanced around the hallway and found himself to be surrounded by three office workers and a cleaner. He continued in a chipper voice, keen on not falling out of character, even if there was seemingly no one from S.H.I.E.L.D. here. "How are you?"

"Good, Harry. Good." Banner replied absently. "I'm calling to ask if your going to be coming past for... lunch anytime soon. It's just that you missed last week and we all want to... see you." Harry cursed in his head for a moment. In his rush at setting up a completely new identity and personality to pass for an agent at S.H.I.E.L.D. he had forgotten to go past Stark Tower last week. He'd even had some new things come to light that he couldn't wait to share with the Avengers.

"Oh, sorry. I've just been so excited with my new job, and like making new friends, that I completely forgot. Can I come by tomorrow after work? Does that work for you? I have so much to tell you." It was annoying keeping up a teenaged persona, but Harry knew it was necessary, and so just went along with it.

"That sounds great, Harry. We'll see you then."

"Brilliant. See ya." Harry hung up the phone, and took a moment to work out how to set an alarm to remind him to go to the Tower after he finished for work the next day.

Having finished that he continued down the hall with an extra bounce in his step knowing that he would have a chance to act as himself tomorrow, with people that, to some extent, knew about the 'real' him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, hope you all like. Drop me a comment to let me know what you think.
> 
> Thanks for all the kudos/bookmarks/comments.
> 
> Lots of love
> 
> Whitsie


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Revelations and cultural differences. Also Harry will cut a bitch if they insult the Wizarding World

It was fortunate that Harry wasn't expecting to interact with Bruce in public in the near future, because he had no idea how to act around any kind of family that didn't despise the air he breathed. With the Dursley's as his only frame of reference, Harry was barely capable of genuinely being comfortable around anyone claiming a familial relationship to him, including the Weasleys, although he did know that with Bruce it was an entirely fake relationship. It meant that Harry could most likely fake his way through any situation with Bruce, but he wasn't completely sure.

Nevertheless he did his best to act normally as he made his way to Stark Tower, not allowing himself to consider Bruce coming to meet him outside the tower or in the lobby. The man knew that Harry was able to make his way up to their floor. It would be fine.

Harry, noting a café on the other side of the street, decided to step inside and get a coffee, so that he could give himself some time to calm down as well as wake himself up from the very long night he had had.

Stark had sent over a box of files, disguised as moving materials (Harry had supposedly only moved in last week, and as a teenager it wasn't unfeasible that he was still buying things to fill his house) two nights ago. Included was not only the final report on the 'Liberators' mission, which had been officially proven to have been entirely disbanded and very unlikely to start up again, but a couple of other files and pieces of information that Harry had requested including any numbers or data he could find on S.H.I.E.L.D. missions that had failed in the last year that had any relation to mutants or mutant affairs.

Harry figured that whoever it was sabotaging S.H.I.E.L.D., at least from what he could work out with the information he was working with, was perhaps someone trying to do something about mutants, either to help their rights movement, or was determined to wipe them out entirely.

Either way it was this request, of information on failed missions that had required Harry to stay up almost the entirety of the night before. While S.H.I.E.L.D. did have an incredible success rate, far above any other spy agency in the world, like any agency some missions were always going to fail. In the past year, 10 involving mutants had failed, and reading through the reports for all of them, to try and find a connection, had been very very hard and very very time consuming.

He hadn't found one yet, but Harry was sure he would. He knew just wasn't looking in the right places. He would have to wait and see if another mission failed on the same scale, or in the same manner as his own had, and then try and find a link with some of the other past failed missions.

"I'll have a large cappuccino, please." Harry requested of the cashier.

"Would that be a grande or a venti, sir?"

Harry rolled his eyes but replied in his politest tone. "Whichever one is larger, please."

"And your name, sir?"

"Harry."

Harry paid and went to stand at the edge of the large crowd surrounding the pick-up area.

"Harry? Harry Potter?"

He turned around at the sound of his name, and saw someone who he knew he had met somewhere around S.H.I.E.L.D.. Harry managed to remember his name just as the man came to a stop in front of him.

"Hello. Cliff right? With the knives?" Harry held out his hand to shake, taking note of the gun under Cliff's coat in a holster and the knives he could just see the faint outline of pressing into his pants. He knew just how well the man could throw them, having spent a couple of hours working in the S.H.I.E.L.D. training room before and since becoming an official agent.

"Yeah, that's me. Fancy seeing you here."

Harry gave a small grin. "Yeah, crazy. Look, mate, I'd love to stay and chat, but I'm going to my uncle's for lunch and I'm gonna be late. I'll catch up with you back at HQ some time, yeah?"

"Oh, sure. Sounds great." Cliff replied. "Here, what's your number? I'll call you."

Harry pulled out his phone and they exchanged numbers, then after collecting his coffee, said goodbye and made his way out of the café and toward Stark tower again. He wouldn't have minded staying to chat, but he had been looking forward to a chance to stop acting like a twentyish year old for a week now, and having to continue the charade for even a little while longer when he didn't have to would have been exhausting.

Entering the building, Harry took a moment to admire the extraordinary effort that had gone into the building and designing of the Tower. Although it was nothing like Hogwarts, or really anything in the magical world, it was awe inspiring in its own, muggle, way. Harry smiled at the receptionist as he walked over to the lift stepping in when it arrived.

Harry pressed the button for the top-most floor, and greeted J.A.R.V.I.S.. He still found the concept of a non-sentient sentience to be odd, even after he saw what Stark adamantly professed was the brain. He guessed he was just too used to true sentient objects like the Sorting Hat, and Hogwarts to an extent, that had never been 'programmed' to act like they did, but just were. The idea that this 'machine' had been built entirely by human hands, and ran off something as simple as electricity was… mind-boggling. This was probably the closest Harry would ever come to understanding Arthur Weasley's fascination with plugs and electricity.

Either way, no matter that it made him uncomfortable, Harry was going to be polite to the AI like his British, Petunia-enforced, upbringing demanded.

When the lift doors opened the first thing Harry saw was Thor's massive chest. He had mostly moved on from his unfortunate height issues, but finding himself almost a foot shorter than someone, no matter that they were a god from another plane of existence, was never going to be something he enjoyed. Harry just took solace in knowing that he had beaten the thunder god in a fight and was perfectly capable of doing it again.

Thor stood in front of Harry with his hand held out at Harry's chest height, the fingers curled around his palm making a fist.

"Fist me."

Harry blinked at the completely unexpected offer, then realised who he was talking to. "I'm pretty sure that's not what you wanted to ask. Although if it was" Harry flicked his gaze up and down the gods well defined body "I'm all for it."

Behind Thor, in the living room he saw Stark laughing and Banner grinning widely and figured it would be far easier to deal with someone who perhaps had some idea of what was going on.

"Come on, mate. Let's go and work out what mess you've got yourself into." Harry spun the demi-god around with a push to his elbow, and together they wandered over to the couches where the two geniuses were sitting.

After taking a seat for himself Harry looked over at the two still smiling men. "Alright, which of you two set him up for whatever that was?" Harry looked at Stark pointedly, but the man just grinned and pointed at Banner.

"Banner?" Harry asked in surprise, but before he had a chance to continue speaking he was interrupted by Stark.

"Ah ah ah." He reprimanded. "That's your uncle you're speaking to. First names only. You should probably call us all by our first names, just to keep in the habit."

Harry huffed but knew the man was right. "Ok then. _Bruce_ what did you do to Thor?"

Harry reached out with his hand and pulled Thor's fist down to rest in his lap, after realising that the demi-god was still holding it up.

"Nothing, actually. Thor saw some teenagers doing it out in the city a couple of days ago and has been greeting everyone the same way since. Except this morning, pre-coffee, I thought it was a fantastic idea to say 'fist me, bro' when Thor walked into the kitchen, and that… well… seems to have been adopted."

"So, it is not correct to say 'fist me'?" Thor asked.

"No, big guy, it's really not. Just go back to how you were doing it before, 'kay?" Tony replied.

Thor nodded, but before he had a chance to reply, Harry interrupted him, "I see. So that was a greeting, then?"

At this Stark actually looked up from the pad of paper he was no doubt designing something on. "You don't know what that was? What kind of rock have you been living under to not know what fist-bumping is?"

Harry rolled his eyes in response. "I don't know about a rock, but I have been living in an entirely different world almost exclusively since 1997. That's like me asking you about… I don't know… your opinion on the latest addition to chocolate frog cards. You'd have no idea what I was talking about. Wizarding and Muggle societies are extremely separated."

"Seriously. You're that isolated? So tell me about the wizarding teenage greeting then. Do they tap their wands together or something?"

"I, honestly, have no idea. Although, "he continued "I do know _far_ too much about how muggle teenagers act nowadays. Pretending to be one was the worst decision I ever made. I haven't said 'like' so much before in my life, and all the high-fiving and the clothes and the _constant enthusiasm_ for _everything_ … Merlin. I'm thirty five for Merlins sakes. It's undignified." Harry complained.

"Oh, come on. Cheer up and embrace your inner child. What were you doing when you were a teenager? Just relive that." Stark replied.

"Well, considering I was at the top of Wizarding Britain's most-wanted list and living on the run hunting down pieces of a mad-man's soul..." Harry deadpanned.

"Right then. Well, just… keep doing what you're doing because it seems to be working. No one at S.H.I.E.L.D., as far as I can tell, has made any serious inquiries into you, so you're flying under the radar pretty well as is. But to perfect your cover you're going to need to learn how to fist bump, okay?"

Harry nodded.

"It's really easy. Just hold up your fist, like Thor did, and then he'll touch his fist to yours and voila, fist bump."

Harry had started following Stark- Tony's instructions, but as he continued with his explanation he had pulled his fist back and put his hands behind his back. "Whoa. No way, mate. Not going to happen! That's practically a punch, and I wouldn't punch my worst enemy, let alone Thor, here."

"It's not actually a punch, Harry." Bruce said in confusion.

"I know that, but it kind of, _technically_ , is, and I'm not going to risk a blood feud forming for a bit of fun."

"What?" Stark asked in shock.

Harry sighed. "In a society that has magic, and wands, physical violence is the ultimate insult. I didn't understand that at fifteen and when I got in a punch up with my school-rival I formed a blood feud with his entire family. But we shared some family connections, through my grandmother and his mother so the feud warped and ended up slowly killing us. There was a chance I was going to have to marry him, which… yeah, no. So instead it took multiple life-debts being owed to everyone on both sides of the feud for us to get it to dissolve. And that took years." Harry ran his hand through his hair, remembering the disaster that had been his interactions with Malfoy and his family in the years following the War.

"I'm not going to risk that happening again, especially considering Thor's position in Asgard. It wouldn't be a problem with either of you, but because of Thor's magic, who knows what could happen."

"Christ. What is it with you wizards? Like, you've got magic, but you've never moved out of the middle ages. I thought quills and robes were bad enough, but life-debts and fucking blood-feuds. What's wrong with you all?"

Harry tuned to glare at Stark, bristling. "Unlike you muggles, we wizards never had any 'dark ages'. Do you know what that means?" Harry asked, instead of answering his question.

"That you're a society that's so entrenched in tradition that you stagnated centuries ago?" Stark asked mockingly.

"Merlin fucking Emrys, no. It means that centuries ago while your ancestors were sitting around in squalor, killing anyone who looked at them sideways, wizarding kind was creating things that you are only just matching now.

"You think your so superior with your electricity, but you forget that the only reason we didn't develop it is because we _didn't need it_. We've been able to produce light and make things move since before recorded history. You are so impressed with the wheel, that provides nothing we didn't already have.

"You're confused about us using quills? You developed pens and pencils because their easier to use, right? We instead developed spells, with our _magic_ , that enabled quills to last longer and work better and for ink to run more smoothly and even change colours if we so wanted." Harry ran his hands through his hair again and sat down. "I'm sure you've noticed by now that I use 'Merlin' like you use 'Jesus' or 'God', right?" Harry ploughed on without waiting for an answer. "That's because, for us, unlike you, Merlin was a real person. He lived and did incredible things and when he died be was practically deified. But not really, because for us, our 'deity' is magic herself. We worship her above anything else for the gift she gave us all. And no wizard or witch would ever take her name in vain because she is able to directly punish us.

"For that same reason, magic's active presence in our lives, we still have blood-feuds and life-debts and everything else you condemn about us. Magic creates and enforces them and that's the way things are."

Harry would have continued talking but for the woman walking out of Tony's study that looked so very familiar in a way that made his breath catch and completely forget his train of thought.

"Ginny?" He whispered. Harry blinked a few times and realised that while the woman certainly resembled Ginny Weasley there were a few things that differentiated them. "I'm sorry." He gave a somewhat sad smile. "You remind me very much of someone I used to know." Harry stood up and offered his hand. "Harry Potter, ma'am."

"Pepper Potts. It's lovely to meet you."

"The pleasure's all mine. Do you live here or…?" Harry trailed off leadingly

"No." Ms Potts laughed. "No, I just run Tony's life."

"Oh. Must be tiring." Harry winked. "I'm sure Tony mentioned that I was coming by today, then."

"Yes, he mentioned you a few times. It's nice to meet the man behind the stories."

"I assure you they were all even better in real life." Harry winked.

"If you've finished flirting with my very taken CEO..." Tony interrupted.

Harry laughed and replied to Ms Potts, ignoring Tony. "Sorry. As I said, you remind me of someone. My wife. I guess I just fell into treating you the same way I did her."

"You don't have a wife." Tony said, bluntly.

"Ex-wife. She died. 10 years ago." Harry turned to glare at Tony and was glad to see the man looked somewhat abashed but also very surprised.

"Christ, but you're only thirty-five. You were married at twenty-five?"

"I was married at eighteen. I was expecting a child at twenty-five. There were complications and…" Harry shrugged, not wanting to talk about it, and fished around for a way to change the subject, and proceeded to do so extremely inelgantly. "How about you guys get Rogers - Steve to come up here so I can tell him all the interesting things his blood has told me."

"Um, sure. J.A.R.V.I.S.'ll do it, but the Captain might be a little bit. He said he was going to the gym and he always works out for at least two hours." Tony turned to Pepper. "Are you going to stay for lunch or do you have places to be?"

"No, don't worry; I'll leave you to have your fun, Tony. I've a couple of meetings this afternoon. I'll drop in tomorrow with some things you need to sign, and I want the schematics for that new phone you're working on. There's a company interested in it, but I don't actually have anything to show them right now, so if you got on it, that'd be great."

Pepper's phone rang as she was talking so she picked it up and just wove goodbye to them all before she walked over to the lift and left.

Harry immediately turned to Tony with a sceptical look on his face. " _Pepper Potts_? _Really_? Did her parents really hate her that much?"

"Yes. Pepper Potts. It's honestly the reason I hired her originally." Tony flashed a wide smile at the memory. "Anyway, did you come here for something, or just our wonderful company?"

"As much as I truly love you all, I do have things to tell you. Your team is fascinating magically. Well, except you Tony." Harry laughed slightly as Tony spluttered.

"What do you mean? I've got some of the most advanced pieces of technology in the world _embedded in my chest_. Like I'm being kept alive by something that, when I built it, no one believed possible, or had even thought of. Of course I'm fucking _fascinating_."

Harry rolled his eyes before he replied. "Yeah, you are fascinating, Tony, but that's not what I said. I said fascinating magically. According to all my tests, you're just a regular human, with no magical talents and just a fuck ton of luck. I'm sure I could look at your reactor to find out more about it, but considering you built it, anything I could tell you would just be repeating that back to you. "

Tony looked somewhat mollified by Harry's explanation as he dropped back into a sprawl on the couch, but still a bit put out that he didn't have any 'super cool mystical mojo' going on, as he had described it to Harry a few weeks back.

"Anyway." Harry continued, turning to Bruce. "I'm going well with your tests, but is there any way I could have some of your alter's blood? Because I'm getting a whole lot of signals from your blood that make only some sense and I think some tests on the properly altered part of you could clear everything up."

"Of course. I think Tony might have some sitting around actually. Could you use that, by chance? Because getting blood the Hulk is a really difficult experience that I'd like to avoid if possible."

Tony nodded before they even had a chance to ask and addressed Harry. "Yeah, I've got some lying around somewhere, we can go through my lab when you leave, and pick it up then."

"Brilliant. Okay, then." Harry grinned. "You promised me food."

Tony smiled and levered himself up off the couch and led them into the kitchen to find something to eat.

Harry figured he could continue chatting with the two geniuses and Thor while he waited for Captain America to make his way up to this floor, and so followed Stark into his high tech kitchen, so very far away from the stifling domestic space he had originally been forced to cook in.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you all like it.
> 
> Tell me what you think
> 
> xx
> 
> Whitsie


	9. Interlude

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An insight into Steve's mind.

Steve was generally used to being the comforter in any given situation. As team leader he was the one any of the other Avenger's came to if they had a serious problem, unless is was too personal, and he wasn't really close enough to anyone outside the team. He was used to helping others work through their problems rationally and reasonably. Any problems Steve had himself were either too minor to worry anyone else about or just not something he was happy talking to anyone else about.

Like now, unable to go to sleep because his mind just wouldn't stop thinking.

It wasn't that he didn't know queers existed, because he did. He remembered going out with Bucky and him pointing at what Steve had thought was a lady.

"Look at that fairy, Steve. He's almost as pretty as that dame I went dancing with last week, you remember"

And once it had been pointed out to him, Steve could see that lady had a very flat chest and that her hair was actually a wig and that she wasn't a lady at all. He hadn't had time to look at the man properly before he ducked into a building Bucky had told him was for 'his type of folk', but the brief look had been enough for Steve to want to draw the man. Having a chance to draw the strong lines of his jaw and his flowing dress would have been incredible. But being as little as he had been back then meant that Steve never got up the courage to ask any of the fairies for permission to even sketch them.

And it's not like Steve didn't know that men could be with men and women with women these days. It had been one of the first things that he had learnt about living in New York, especially after a walk through Chelsea with Tony and Thor, under the pretense of educating him and Thor about the modern era. Steve was sure Tony had a picture somewhere of his shocked face the first time he saw two men holding hands.

But Steve had never met a gay man before. Someone who could have been looking at him  _like_   _that_ or interested in him in  _that way_. So Steve didn't know how to act around Harry anymore because what if he saw something Steve did as an invitation, or flirtation?

Steve had never been a flirt, Back when they were younger it was always Bucky who went after the ladies, and they never paid Steve much attention. Although he could see why they would have ignored his rather pathetic figure when he was standing next to Bucky with his wide shoulders, bright smile and incredible charm. Then with Peggy Steve had just acted naturally, done whatever had come to him and been blindsided at every turn by her continual attraction to him. And in this time Steve really hadn't had time, and so, to realise that he could have unintentionally been giving out  _signals_  to any man that he was interested was terrifying to Steve.

Because he wasn't. At was looking for a nice lady to settle down with later in life when Captain America was no longer needed.

But that was a problem for another day, because yesterday Steve had found out that Harry was queer, and he had never noticed.

Harry looked somewhat like Tony might have when he was 17, only with even messier hair and bright green eyes. He didn't have any stubble but he had a sharp jaw and a clearly masculine shape, with ropy muscles up his arms and legs that looked out of place on a seventeen year old.

However, didn't look like any of the proper men he had seen leaving the queer bars escorting one of the fairies, and he didn't look like a girl, and would look ridiculous in a dress and it just  _didn't make sense_.

How was Steve meant to act now? He had manged to refrain from any serious reaction yesterday in front of his team mates, because he saw that none of them had been fazed, but when he had entered his own flat in the tower the shock had hit him properly and he had spent a couple of hours on his couch running through all his interactions with the wizard trying to find any clue that he had missed. He hadn't been able to think of anything, but that only resolved his determination to look harder in the future, and work out what it was that made Harry queer, and check that he didn't want  _anything_  from Steve.

Steve nodded to himself, turning over in his bed, thinking that he might be able to get to sleep now his mind was resolved. Who needed others for comfort? Steve had always managed just fine dealing with his problems by himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As as person who firstly is not a product of the 30's, secondly had no problem accepting her sexuality (bi if you want to know) and thirdly is a female, I'm not sure if i got the characterisation of a homosexually-repressed male down pat, but i tried. Let me know if you think I've done it well or dreadfully, or in between.
> 
> I'll post the next chapter in the next couple of days to make up for how short this is, and if I forget feel free to remind me.
> 
> xx
> 
> Whitsie


	10. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some philosophy, some relationship development, some set up for an actual mission.

It was only when Harry noticed that almost half his pasta had moved to Clint's plate that he realised he had fallen back into his childhood eating habits again. He had spent a lot of time, especially after Hogwarts, re-learning how to eat at a table where he wasn't required to allow Dudley to take all the food he wanted off Harry's plate. The behaviour had been, unfortunately, re-enforced in his first years of Hogwarts because he sat next to Ron, who was used to sharing his meals with his siblings, who had a winner-takes-all attitude to food. It had been, surprisingly, Viktor Krum, who sat with them in the weeks after the Yule Ball, who pointed out that Harry only ever ate, at most, half of his, usually meagre, meal. By this point, both Hermione and Ron had developed the habit of taking things off Harry's plate if they saw something they wanted, but Harry had never developed the proper response, that is, taking some food back.

Harry had, by the time he was twenty-five, managed to teach himself how to stop others from taking his food, and get used to being able to eat everything that he wanted to eat, but was clearly falling back on old habits in this new environment.

While he was glad that he was, as it meant he was properly acting like a teenaged version of himself, it also meant that the superspies and geniuses he was associating with would be able to very accurately gather an image of what his childhood was like, if they paid any attention to what he was doing.

Although, Harry was able to see learn things about them as well. Bruce was the most obvious. He ate everything that was on his plate, even if he didn't like it, showing that he had lived with a shortage of food for a long period of time, although Bruce's vegetarianism indicated that he had never been truly desperate, had never been in a situation where any form of nutrients was welcome.

By contrast, Clint was very similar to Harry, in that he ate in swift, economical movements, and happily took food of other's plates, especially Harry's now that he knew Harry wouldn't stop him. He had clearly lived in a situation similar to Ron's, where food wasn't exactly short, but you had to fight to get enough, and others didn't really respect (boundaries) when it came to an individual's plates. Of course, Harry knew that Clint would have been trained out of any tells, so to take any body language indicators as absolute truth would be a mistake.

However, considering Clint's current food theft, Harry forcibly moved to sit properly, and blocked Clint's fork when it next came towards his plate.

He managed to get a few bites in before he noticed Natasha staring at him with narrowed eyes. Rather than make her ask a question, he just said, "Muscle memory is hard to get rid of in a body that doesn't change."

Natasha just shrugged, and hummed noncommittally, but before she had a chance to say anything, Tony interrupted.

"See that's what I don't understand. You look seventeen. You say you don't change. And you clearly don't because you eat enough for your body to not be so skinny. But you are. And JARVIS tells me you have early indicators of osteoporosis, but that it hasn't advanced at all in the last 10 years which is impossible. So that adds credence to what you say. So you don't age, and existing wounds don't heal but new ones do, but you somehow manage to learn. How does that work?"

"Pardon?" Harry asked. "How do I… learn? By reading a book, just like everyone else."

"No. That doesn't work. The brain doesn't work like that. You shouldn't be able to have reactions like you do. If you stay the same, then you should never be able to have any kind of flight or flight adrenaline reactions, or be able to pick up how to use a smart phone that you had never used before, and ingrain it in your 'muscle memory'. You act like you're thirty, but don't have a prefrontal cortex. It just doesn't work!" Tony flung his hands up in exasperation.

Harry honestly only had a vague idea about what Tony was talking about and so had no way of answering him, but Bruce took the chance to enter the conversation. "Tony is trying to apply science to your situation. He's managed to do so, so far, with the books you gave us. Mostly. We had to develop new physics, and re-adjust certain fundamental principles of the world, but really, all the magic we've come across so far has made sense. Except you. And Tony doesn't like things that are impossible. He takes them as a challenge. What he's trying to ask is how you maintain the body of a seventeen year old, as well as your teenage mind and actions, but still manage to assimilate new knowledge and be the thirty-five year old you are."

"Well my soul is still aging, of course." Harry replied, he figured that would be obvious, but considering Tony's spluttering and Bruce's wide eyed look that wasn't exactly true.

"'Of course' he says. 'Of course' like he's not ignoring centuries of philosophical debates. Christ." Harry stared at Tony as he spoke and then looked around at the other Avengers to see they were all staring at him with fascination, except for Thor, who continued to eat placidly.

"What… Why are you all looking so shocked? Of course my soul is still aging. What else would it be doing?"

Natasha reached over to knock on the table in front of him to draw his attention before asking. "You have soul? You know this?"

"Yes?" Harry replied in confusion. "I don't look soulless do I?"

"Then do I 'look soulless'" She asked.

"No… Do muggles not know how to remove souls? Is this why you don't know?"

It was Thor who interrupted the silence that fell this time. "Harry, the Midgardians have not yet found proof that the soul exists. Many believe that it doesn't."

"JARVIS you got this?" Tony asked faintly.

"Yes, sir" The AI replied.

"Save it in a folder, and put together the latest research and philosophy on souls. Remind me to look at it later."

"Can you give me access to that too, JARVIS?"

"Certainly, Mr Banner."

Harry looked at the Avengers curiously. "You really don't know that souls exist? Honestly?"

"No! It breaks all the principles of physicalism, and there is no proof that is exists. And there's no  _space._ Where is it?"

"Ah… I don't know, really. In you somewhere. I'm could find-"

"Your people are not yet ready for the knowledge. Humans cannot know of the soul yet." Thor interrupted.

"Excuse me" Harry replied indignantly. "My people are human too."

"Yes. And can you say they did not pervert all that the soul is as soon as they could? Did they not find it in the most horrific way possible"

Harry thought of Voldemort and his Horcruxes, the little he knew of the history of dementors and the necromancer who made them, of inferi, and the way the Resurrection Stone, created by Cadmus Peverell, hurt the souls it brought back into the world. He thought of the Killing Curse and everything that muggles didn't yet need to face, and nodded. Human nature was cruel, and cruellest when it was looking to save itself by learning more.

"Don't bother with your research, Tony. Even we don't know much about it. Only that it exists, and what it gives us."

"Yes, but from what you said it relates to the mind somehow, and I can work with that. Just tell me what a soulless person looks like."

Harry thought about the horrific sight that had been Barty Crouch Jnr at the end of his fourth year, eyes vacant, body unnaturally still. "I can't. Thor said you are not meant to know, and I believe him."

Natasha pushed back from the table, and walked out of the room without a word, face blank.

"Don't mind her." Clint spoke up for the first time since Harry had entered the kitchen, currently leaning back on one chair leg, somehow still maintaining his balance. "Just some things she needs to think through."

"Lady Natasha should not concern herself with this. You are not going to discover anything for many centuries. Not until the new Age. It is a matter for Harry and I to worry over, not you mortals. It is a matter too abstruse for you to yet consider."

"Yeah, honestly. Don't worry about it. I mean, obviously I can't stop you from looking into it if you want" Here Harry looked at Tony and Bruce, "but you honestly won't find anything. If it is not fated, it will not be, and you have so much more to offer the world than futile research.

"Tell me about the science of magic. I'll see if I can find anything to help you."

* * *

"Steve! Steve!" Harry called after the tall blond man, who was walking down the road away from the tower, heading the same way as Harry's bike. Harry ran to catch up with the man and fell into step next to him.

"Harry. Hello. How are you?"

"Fine. You missed lunch. How are you?"

"Good. I was in the gym. Had some things I needed to work out. Punching a bag over and over again seems to help me."

Harry laughed. "I get that. Sometimes the only thing that helps is sparring, or running till you faint. Not that your body seems to have an upward end to it's abilities."

"Yeah. At least, I haven't found any." Steve sighed. "Did you need something?"

"Oh. Yes. I actually came to the tower today to find you. You know all the research I've been doing on your team mates?"

"Yes. You have something on me?"

"Yeah. It's... something else. I mean. It's incredible, but I don't know how to tell you... I mean-. Just. Read this." Harry pulled out a folder, which detailed all that he had found about Steve. "Talk to Thor. He'll be good to talk to. Let me know if you want me to... fix it. I could, I think. I have all the time in the world for research." Harry laughed hollowly. "And read it somewhere you can break down. Er, just in case."

Harry patted Steve on the back and walked away, leaving the massive man to stare after him in confusion. Harry knew it was cowardly, but he had no idea how to tell the man that his healing ability was so advanced he'd never age, and likely would only ever die if some one cut his head off, and kept it detached for over an hour. Harry remembered the breakdown he'd had when he first realised he wasn't aging, and couldn't be wounded properly. He'd lived in a state of denial for a week and it had taken the realisation of the good he could do, that is, the  _Protegat_  spell to bring him out of it. Although, it was the prospect of the spell being able to kill him that drew him to try it.

From what he could see, Steve would never drop to the emotional low necessary to killing himself, and would have team willing to help him, and a near-immortal being who would explain the benefits of his new situation. He would write to Thor now and inform him of what he would be facing in the next couple of days.

* * *

Harry was back in the S.H.I.E.L.D training room with his team, Christian and Damien, having been told by Adrian that they were expected to learn to work as a team. In the last couple of weeks they had only run into each other occasionally, passing each other in the halls with stacks of paper, or in the Junior Agent locker room in the morning or afternoon, so Harry really had no idea about either their personalities or fighting styles.

At the moment they were all standing off to the side of the sparring mats slightly awkwardly, as they tried to work out how to act around each other.

"Look. We need to work something out so Adrian doesn't put us back on like, file delivery, so how about we just talk about our ability. Like how well we all fight, or like preferred weapon or something." Harry spoke up, his actual age, and natural leadership tendencies coming to the forefront. Neither of his teammates spoke, so Harry continued. "I'm really good with knives, and generally fight with them, but I always hit stuff I when I throw them."

"I was a sniper. A fucking good one too. But, you know, Army, so I'm fine with guns and some hand to hand, and can make a bomb out of just about anything." said Damien.

Christian Smith nodded. "I'm kinda the opposite. Like I'm really great hand to hand, up in your face, but can get along fine from a distance. Also, ah, they hired me 'cause I'm very good at interrogation. That and, um 'wet work'"

"So you were what, in the mob or something, and I'm from the army, so then where did you come from kid?" Damien asked Harry harshly.

"Well, England." Harry replied cheekily. "No, I got caught up in some stuff over the pond, and then like MI6 were involved, and I needed some help to get out of the country, kinda witness protection, and my uncle had some connections, who I didn't even know existed, and then he put me in contact with S.H.I.E.L.D. and they tested me, and here we are."

Of course everything Harry just said was not only completely made up, but also lacking any kind of details allowing it to be followed up on. However, Harry knew that any 'facts' his teammates had provided would be the same, mostly made up, except for their weapons talents, and lacking half the details. Either way, it was enough for now, and they all knew the only way they could really learn to work together was to develop trust, which would take time.

Either way, they were stopped from making any further awkward overtures by Adrian walking past them and gesturing for them to follow.

They trailed behind him into one of they many nondescript rooms that lined the halls of S.H.I.E.L.D., that had only a table big enough for six to sit at, and a white board with a big hunk of blue-tak sticking to it.

"Congratulations for managing not to complain too much about your jobs. You've all done better than most, likely because Harry guessed at the start that we were, for want of a better word, hazing you. We were making sure you could all follow orders you didn't like and knew when to complain, which is never." Adrian was standing at the head of the table, and gestured for them to sit down.

"Now, I'm sure you've noticed that I'm only a couple of years older than you. That does not mean I'm not more competent than you, does not mean you do not follow my orders, and does not mean I'm going to go easier on you out of sympathy or something. We all need to exceed, so that we can all advance. Unless something serious changes this will be your team for the next couple of years, before you either get assigned to go solo, or choose to specialise. Right now, because of your talents we are a 'wet work' team. This means assassinations. This means information extraction. You need to learn how to get in, get out, and leave the body behind exactly as we want it. S.H.I.E.L.D. is the best, and you need to live up to expectations."

"Now, as you've all done well, we have a mission. It's simple, and you really can't mess it up. We just need you to prove you can do it."

Adrian turned around and, using a bit of the blue-tak, stuck a picture to the whiteboard, then passed out a file to each of them.

"Daniel Jones. He deals with Hamas, passing on money, and trading information, acting as a go between for them and other organisations. We want him brought in, and we're giving you a chance to find out what he knows. If you open your folders, you'll see we've planned out most of this. We need to get him up to his hotel room and out to his balcony which is your job Harry, where you Damien will be responsible for getting him with a tranq from the building across from it. Harry you'll then tie a rope around him, drop him down to the room below where me and Christian will catch him, then follow him down. We wait for him to wake up, give Damien time to come over to us, then its all in your hands. I'll be there with you to assess you, but won't participate, and will stay out of Jones' sight.

Looking through the folders, showing the hotel blueprints, a couple options for Damien to wait in, and some information on his background, and more legitimate business dealings.

"This all makes sense, except you don't say how you want me to get him up to his balcony." Harry looked up at Adrian who was grinning widely. Harry caught the bag that was thrown at him, and pulled out the clothes that were inside.

Laying out the size-too-small skinny jeans, the thin white tee-shirt, and converse, Harry groaned.

Adrian nodded, as if he had actually said something. "That's right. Honeypot."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, please remember that this is Harry's point of view, so I try to keep what Harry could know realistic, thus him not knowing things that we know to be canon, primarily here the more fanon idea of Steve's mental state, which is you know a spoiler, but lets be real you all understand foreshadowing. So he's talking to Steve here about like, reading a file to see that he's immortal which is the dickiest move ever, but Harry is scared, Harry doesn't want to be the bearer of bad news, and Harry is happy to avoid the confrontation entirely, which he just did. He doesn't really know the repercussions of this, because he doesn't really know Steve. Anyway, that's plot that will be explored later. Obviously.
> 
> Aside from that, I'm nearly caught up to ffn here, so you guys will be getting the new chapters with them as I put it up, and expect the time between chapters to stay about the same as it is here i.e. vaguely sporadic, oftentimes longer than not, but hopefully worth it.
> 
> As always thanks for the kudos, comments, or for just reading.
> 
> Let me know what you think.
> 
> xx
> 
> Whitsie


	11. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry doesn't get laid, then talks about his problems because he is an adult.

Harry was used to going to bars. Harry was used to going out with the intention of getting laid. Harry was used to people finding him attractive. He knew he was attractive.

However when he had actually been 18, like he was pretending to be at the moment, he had spent half his time holed up in Grimmauld Place with Ron, commiserating with him about their girlfriends being off at Hogwarts, and half of it with Andromeda looking after Teddy.

He had certainly never spent his time at clubs trying to hook up with someone who it seemed was mostly closeted and shy as well. He had needed to readjust his original seduction plan, because coming on to Jones as an awkward virgin was never going to get him anywhere near his room. So Harry instead chose to act like a British university student, over in the States on exchange, looking for an easy way to get off that wouldn't get around campus in a day, because "American's love to gossip. Like so much. It's ridiculous. It has to be a culture thing, because us English have the proper sense to talk about someone behind their back, not come up to someone and ask them to their face about penis sizes." Harry leant a bit further onto Jones, and stroked his hand down his arm. "Is it the same after uni, sorry, you guys call it 'college' don't you?"

Harry feigned interest while also stroking his hand onto Jones' thigh, up toward his groin, and pausing right before he reached it, to put his weight on Jones' thigh while he leant across to grab his drink.

Seducing a man was always the same when you looked like Harry did, mission or no mission. Wrap your lips around a straw while looking through your eyelashes, allow your shirt to ride up and when his arm is around you shift around a couple times until his hand falls on your arse then don't bother to move it. A couple of alcohol inspired innuendos and you are guaranteed to be taken home within the hour.

And so, Harry happily followed the man over to the lift, having stopped his fumbled invitation with a finger to his lips, followed by a kiss. He pressed up against the man once the doors slid shut, riding his thigh and trailing his hands down to his crotch to grope his cock. He didn't stop once the lift doors opened again, merely moving slightly out of the way so that Jones could lead them to his room.

He pressed up against the man, kissing him desperately, tugging at his tie with one hand, and fumbling with his belt with the other, while toeing off his shoes. Then once they were both mostly undone, turned to the room made as if to run to the bed, then paused when he saw the large window and balcony. He rushed up to the glass, and looked out at the road below them, and across at the lit windows in the building across from them and turned around to face Jones' with his body pressed against the glass.

"David." He purred. "It's a lovely evening to go outside, don't you think?"

Jones looked unsure, typical of his cautious nature, but Harry had expected this, and had been planning since he met the man how to ensure the mission parameters would be met. He ran his hands down his torso to undo the button of his jeans, before pulling his shirt off. He turned around and opened the glass door to the balcony letting in the city noise, before he bent down at the waist pulling his jeans off as he did so, showing his arse, encased in tight briefs, confidently. He stepped out of the jeans, and reached down to pull a packet of lube and a condom out of a pocket, then flashed a grin over his shoulder, and went to lean on the balcony railing, leaving his legs spread enticingly.

He knew it would take Jones a couple of moments to get over his shock, and then stumble out of his clothes, but he gave no hint of anxiousness, and no hint of the eye he kept on the flashes of light glinting off a rifle scope in a darkened room across from him.

When he felt Jones press up against his back he tilted his head to the side to give him access to his neck, before he passed him the lube and condom, and pressed his chest further down, as Jones stood up, under the pretence of spreading his legs even more. After a second, where Jones fumbled with the packet, Harry heard a rush of air over his head, and then a moment later, a groan before Jones collapsed half on his back, before sliding to the floor.

Harry quickly reached back in the room to grab his shirt and pull it on, then reached over to grab the rope that was tied to the railing over on the far left, thin enough to be easily missed in the shadows.

He tied Jones wrists, then looped the rope around his shoulders, binding his arms across his chest, with the rope looping over and around his shoulders and back securely. He hefted Jones up so his waist was resting on the railing, whistled twice, presuming that Christian was aware and ready to catch him, having been warned by Damien through the ear pieces it had been deemed too risky for Harry to wear. He pushed Jones over, and let him down slowly, letting the rope drop over slowly through his shirt wrapped hands. When he felt the rope gain some slack he quickly untied the rope from the railing, dropped it all over the edge. He walked back into the room, pulled the door and curtains shut then, after pulling on his jeans and shoes, grabbed the unopened condom packet, checked the missing lube hadn't fallen into a corner and picked up Jones' clothes and shoes and put them on the top of his open suitcase. He went into the bathroom and grabbed his assorted toiletries, including the opened bottles of complimentary body wash and shampoo.

He walked back into the main room, and, covering his hand with a face cloth, pulled open the drawers to check there was nothing in them, then collected all the papers on the desk and put them in a sleek black briefcase that was sitting next to it. He picked it up, along with the suitcase that he wheeled behind him, and with one last sweep of the room walked out, turning left to avoid the security camera outside the lift, and went into the fire escape five doors over. He let himself out using Jones door key on the floor below and walked back to knock on the door of the room all his team mates and their captive were in.

Christian let him in, grinning. "Damien got here just before you. We've tied Jones up and are just waiting for him to wake up."

Harry nodded and dumped the suitcase in the hall and followed him further into the room, where he saw Jones tied up with sturdy knots, Damien sitting on the bed and Adrian standing in a corner behind Jones so he wouldn't be able to see him when he woke up.

Damian leered when he saw Harry, flicking his eyes up and down his form. "Very nice. I was prepared for you to take him out there for a smoke, not what you did. Either way, less clothes in the way for me, easier job for all of us."

Harry ignored his teammate and threw Jones' phone at Adrian. "It's Starktech, of course, which is nice for us, and I've got his papers here too. Also, while I doubt he's important enough to have, like, secret compartments in his suitcase or anything, better to be safe than sorry, so I've got all his stuff. I mean I know we needed it anyway but this way we don't need to go up to his room again."

"Good." Adrian, replied. "Now we just need to wait for him to wake up. We've got all night to get the information we need, then we can let him go if he gives us enough."

Harry had never really had a taste for impersonal torture. He had never cast the Cruciatus since that first time after Sirius' death. He had occasionally found himself in situations, mostly where his family was in danger, where his morals became slightly more flexible, and he would do whatever it took to ensure the situation would not be repeated. But Harry had never found himself liking torture, or craving it, so was happy to take a back seat to this 'interrogation'.

He instead spent his time analysing his teammates. Emotions, decisions and  _reactions_ made under pressure are what define people.

A couple of punches to the gut, a backhand to the face and a knife pulled out of Christian's boot was all that was required for Jones' loyalty to his masters to be outweighed by his own self-preservation. A cushy life and a couple of underhand business deals had not prepared Jones for the casual brutality of the world he had entered.

But Harry didn't care for the information that was now pouring out of him. He focussed instead on Christian who had put his knife away the moment Jones had broken, but left the blood from Jones' split lip on his knuckles, and Damien who looked stoic, and mostly uninterested. The lack of any kind of sadistic tendencies reassured Harry, and let him put a modicum more trust into his team.

* * *

A couple of days later, Harry had just submitted an oral, unrecorded report to Fury summarising everything he had learned, which was essentially nothing. Fury wasn't satisfied, but knew that infiltration took time, and building trust was a long process. Harry had requested that Fury send a couple of things over to Stark Tower for Harry to go through later.

Harry had entered and left the room under his Invisibilty Cloak because rookie agents had no reason at all to ever interact with the director, and as he left had mentioned to Fury that for all that his agents were the 'most competent in the world' none of them had so much as blinked at his face or name except for Romanoff and Barton. Harry had quickly slammed the door shut, and laughed at the sound of a mug hitting the door and bouncing onto the carpet.

Harry ducked into a bathroom to take off his Cloak, then crossed the hall to go into the cafeteria. He took one of the pre-made sandwiches, as well as an apple and bottle of water, then turned to face the room to look for a place to sit. A slightly familiar person raised their arm and waved him over. As he got closer Harry recognised Cliff Randall, the agent he had run into in the coffee shop.

"Hey, mate. How've you been?" Harry greeted him as he sat down one of the uncomfortable metal benches at each table.

"I'm dying. I swear. Actually dying." Cliff replied dramatically. "I've had to do so much paperwork recently that my hand is cramping."

"Can't you just type it?" Harry asked, as he picked up his sandwich to take a bite. "Like who even handwrites things anymore?"

Cliff snorted. "I know right. Organisations that work with Tony Stark, that's who. Apparently he hacks us so often that they decided we have to have some stuff that he can't access. So we have to do a randomly selected third of all documents by hand, in triplicate so that everyone who needs a copy can have one without it touching any electronics. Its fucking ridiculous." Cliff huffed and curled his hands around a mug of what Harry assumed was dreadful American coffee.

"That sucks, mate. Better you than me." Harry said with a smirk. "Why do you have so much work though?"

"'Cause we're on an upsurge of baddies or whatever and they're being more successful than normal. The success rate of every department has dropped, and so we have to do an investigation into that along with the process for failed missions. And 'cause my boss is trying to be Coulson he's making sure everything is perfect. I swear he makes up half the issues, the bastard."

"Uh, mate. You know I'm like the most junior level right now. Should you be telling me this?" Harry was not exactly looking to stop Cliff, but if all agents had this cavalier attitude to passing out information his own mission scope had just widened exponentially.

"Ugh. No. But you got in. You're smart enough to know when to keep quiet. Anyone asks this never happened and all." Yeah, Harry thought secret agents would be smarter than this.

"Sure. Of course. What conversation."

"Thanks, dude. I gotta go, I only had a short break, but it was nice seeing you. We should go for a drink sometime."

Harry nodded as Cliff swung his legs over the bench and walked off, but before he had a chance to follow Barton dropped into the just vacated seat.

"You gonna sleep with him too?"

"Fuck off." Harry replied good naturedly. "Can you get Fury to send over whatever his department is doing. Like the supervisors notes or whatever."

Clint gave him a confused look. "Why?"

"Because I need them,  _obviously_. What do you want?"

Clint shrugged before replying. "Go talk to Steve. You said something and he's been a broody mess. Fix it." He didn't give Harry an opportunity to reply just jumped up and walked off.

Harry looked at his retreating back for a minute, before getting up himself, dumping his rubbish in one of the bins along a wall and leaving the room.

* * *

"A lot of people have told me my soul is pure, you know." Harry said, falling into step next to Steve. "Since I turned eleven really. And there's a level of knowledge, or, arrogance really, that comes with being what I am, that means I know my soul is pure. Always has been. Not because of any of my actions really, but because I was born destined to be… this, and impartiality is a very important part of that. Which you know, is what a pure soul really means, someone who is overwhelmingly apathetic."

Harry turned slowed to a stop and turned around as Steve stopped jogging, and waited for the man to catch up. "Look that's really great. Really. But if that's some kind of… excuse for letting someone else tell me I will never die, as some kind of excuse for being a  _coward_ , or that you are, what, too apathetic to care, well, I really don't care either. So please get to the point or go away."

"No. No it's not. What I am trying to say, is that you are the way you are. Perfect soldier, perfect human, immortal and all, because of  _your_ soul. It's what people think of when they say 'pure'. You are compassionate, and kind and caring and so very very good. I've looked into the serum, and the 'vita-rays' you were exposed to, and they were a kind of manufactured magic. Very primitive, more voodoo and fairy dust than anything proper, but it was enough to take someone's core, their essence, their soul, and make them match on the outside. You're the perfect human, because you are the perfect human."

"So what. My  _reward_  for being 'perfect' is to watch everyone I know and love die. To leave everyone I ever form a connection with behind. Again." Steve asked bitterly. "Thanks."

Harry looked around the mostly empty stretch of path of Central Park, checking no one would be able to hear them before snapping back angrily. "Would you have preferred I just didn't tell you? Let you go years without aging, watching lines and grey hairs appear on all your friends, your family? Let you slowly come to the realisation yourself, when you look in the mirror in five, ten years and see you haven't changed once, knowing that nothing can really hurt you anyway, 'cause you'll just heal, and having to get up every day after that not being able to change anything?" Harry looked up at Steve's face that was clearly showing the shock was feeling. "Please. You couldn't have handled it."

"I was in the ice for seventy years. You don't know what I can handle." Steve sneered back.

"Come on. Sleeping for seventy ye-" Harry stopped as he looked closely at Steve, before speaking again slowly. "You weren't asleep."

"No. I mean, I slept sure, but only maybe half the time. Less even because I don't need as much sleep as normal people." Steve looked off to the side before looking back at Harry. "You're the first person who's realised, you know. All the genius' and doctors and scientists and shrinks none of them worked it out."

"I apologise for assuming. I'm sorry." Harry honestly didn't know what to say to that vaguely horrifying revelation.

"Yeah. Well." Steve replied.

The pair started jogging again, slowly increasing their speed, and ran for some time before they left the Park, and slowed down to a walk as they made their way toward Stark Tower.

It was as they entered the lift up to the penthouse that Harry spoke again. "I've been reading some of your biographies, because I didn't learn about you at my school, and was wondering if the stuff about you being an incredible strategist was true."

Both Harry and Steve were facing the lift door, but Harry could still see a blush dusting the top of Steve's cheekbones. "Yes."

"Brilliant. I'm not fantastic, more of a jump and see kinda guy, so if you could help me with this thing I'm doing for Fury, that'd be great."

Steve clearly saw this for the olive branch it was and grabbed onto it with both hands. "Of course. Show me where to start."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this story is now caught up with what I have written, but I'm working on the next chapter atm, so expect it soonish.
> 
> As always, comments are v appreciated.
> 
> xx
> 
> Whitise


	12. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry works some things out and meets with Fury far to many times.

"So. What do you think?" Harry leaned back in his chair, having just finished explaining all that he knew to Steve. The set of files he had requested from Fury the day before had turned up that night, and Harry had needed to scrap everything he had done and go from the ground up because of what he had found.

 

"That this is quite possibly the greatest waste of time and effort since the League of Nations. And really, all that did was fail in preventing WWII." Steve replied, incredulously.

 

"What?" Harry had been expecting criticism, as he know he wasn't the greatest strategist, but thought that was a bit harsh.

 

"I mean, you are seriously going through every file that details a failure? And every personnel file as well? Because I'd think that you'd realise you haven't got anywhere, and maybe decide to do something else. At least, that's what anyone with common sense would do?"

 

"Oh, right. No. Well, yes. I am going through all the files. But I also have a secondary objective of giving Fury an assessment of my skills, and how I could help in any given situation. And a general knowledge of all the people I can gather information on, to see if they act out of character. I've always been good with people."

 

Steve snorted. "Right. Sure you are. Anyway. Have you actually found anything then?"

 

Harry pulled out his summary from the mass of papers on the table and passed them over to Steve. "Well, like I told you, there doesn't seem to be any one person who connects all the missions. I mean, I'm pretty sure I've identified a good portion of the sabotaged missions, based on what the people involved should have been able to do, but, there is nothing linking any one of them. Like I started out thinking it was mutant related, you know, hate-crime or something, but that was just because that’s where I started…"

 

"Yeah, I see that." Steve interrupted, comparing his notes on the first mission he had looked at, the Liberator's mission Natasha had intervened on, with his current analysis. "But, do you have any idea of the bigger picture? I mean, there must be a reason."

 

Harry shook his head. "No. Honestly, that's what I was hoping you could help me with. Because I've got nothing."

 

"Christ. Why does Fury even have you on this?" And there it was. The mostly restrained frustration and anger Steve still felt bubbling to the surface in any way it could. To give Steve credit he had mostly kept it to himself, obviously making an effort, but the occasional snippy comments and tightening of his hands around pens, or the edge of the table, gave him away.

 

"Because he doesn't have anyone else. All his resources are potentially compromised, or too high-profile. Like the Avengers. He couldn't get Natasha or Clint to look into S.H.I.E.L.D. for a problem this big. Whoever is doing it is smart enough to notice." Harry knew Steve had asked as a rhetorical question, but had felt the need to answer anyway.

 

Steve nodded, but instead of replying, changed the subject. "As far as I can tell, whoever is doing this, is doing this to take down S.H.I.E.L.D.. Everything they've done, at least from what you've put together, basically shows that Fury, and S.H.I.E.L.D. is failing at what they are doing. Becoming obsolete. My guess. Someone wants to have S.H.I.E.L.D. dismantled, then attack while the new agency is being set up. Fury might be powerful, but he still has to answer to someone."

 

Harry honestly didn’t know what to say. After only a couple of hours Steve had gone over everything Harry had put together and come up with something that seemed entirely plausible, when Harry had barely managed to keep ahead of all the information he was processing. "That's incredible. I would never have worked that out so fast."

 

"Then, why are you doing this?. It's not what you are best at, evidentially. I doubt it's what you expected to be doing." Steve pushed his chair back from the table, and glared across at Harry. "What do you get out of being Fury's lapdog?"

 

"Entertainment?" Harry huffed out a laugh, his shoulders sagging slightly. "I don’t know. When you all first met me- saw me- whatever, I'd just cut myself off from all my friends and family, with the likelihood of never talking to them again. I am also stupidly wealthy, and really have no restraints on my time. I'd met Fury before, he tried to recruit me, so I figured I could work for him for a while. Obviously I assumed I'd be doing something more along the lines of wet-work, but what he has me doing has me set for the next couple of decades at least. It works well enough."

 

"So you're what. Just working for us on a whim. You could as easily have gone to work for… I don't know, North Korea?" Steve asked, clearly frustrated, which was exactly what Harry had been aiming for. Perhaps it wasn’t the best way to vent some of the irritation he felt toward his situation, but it felt very satisfying

 

"Nah. I have enough values not to go to North Korea. But yeah. Fury won by… luck of the draw basically."

 

"Luck of the… How do you live with yourself? God. And to think- Fine." Steve drew in a deep breath, and stood up from the table. "I hope what I have given you is useful. Let me know if you require my services again."

 

Steve stalked away from the table, and Harry realised he had seriously screwed up. He had planned on making an honest effort with Steve, but his natural desire for isolation had led him to sabotage that before it ever had a chance of working. Shit.

 

"Steve." Harry called, scrambling to get up from his chair. "No. Steve! Wait. Sorry!"

 

Steve halted a few steps before the entrance to the fire stairs, but didn't turn back to face Harry.

 

"Look. Sorry, okay. I was being a wanker. I do want to help. My friend used to tell me I have a hero complex. I could have just have easily gone and travelled the world, but I wanted to help. That's why I'm doing what Fury asks. Because I know he does do what's best for the world. Sure he's… manipulative, but he does have good intentions. I'm sorry, alright. I won't be an arsehole again." Harry had stopped a couple of feet away from Steve, separated from him by the corner of a couch.

 

"Apology accepted." Steve turned back to face Harry. "I'm- I apo- I should apologise too. I probably overreacted."

 

Harry smiled, and wave his hand to dismiss it. "No worries, mate. It's all in the past. Now, come and walk me through what you came up with so I can properly explain it to Fury"

 

* * *

 

"So, basically I need you to write me a list of all your enemies, and whoever you think would be able to dismantle S.H.I.E.L.D." Harry finished, having just detailed Steve's idea to Fury.

 

Fury stared at Harry from the other side of his desk.

 

"No, seriously. I'm not kidding. How many could there seriously be?"

 

Fury kept staring.

 

"Like I'm sure there are lots of people who want to kill you, but not so many who could seriously dismantle an agency that is so entrenched and technologically superior that it is able to militarily compete with Asgard."

 

Fury's eye twitched, but did not blink.

 

"…Or not."

 

* * *

 

Harry apparated into a hallway of Stark tower and walked the few steps to the glass door of Tony's lab. The door opened as he came up to it, and loud music blasted out the door. It was turned down almost immediately, and Tony turned to face Harry, who just walked across to a stool and sat on it. He had been in Tony's lab a couple of times before, mostly helping the man to identify exactly what magic was. It was incredible to see the man work, because his mind was so fast he could pick up ideas it had taken Harry months to develop, then pull it apart and rework it even better.

 

"What's up with you?" Tony asked, turning away from whatever it was he had been working on.

 

Harry just slumped back against the bench behind him. "I just need to bounce some ideas off you."

 

"Sure, but why don't you go to Steve again. He didn't complain once about the time he spent with you the other day, which, let me tell you, has never happened before." Tony asked, a wide grin on his face.

 

"Because while he gets your world better than I do, you can tell me way more about technology." Harry replied. "Plus I just like your laboratorium."

 

"Sorry, what? Are you trying to say _laboratory_?" Tony asked, his voice incredulous.

 

Harry frowned. "Um, no. What? This is a laboratorium. A room equipped for specialised operations."

 

"Yeah, but, this is called a laboratory."

 

Harry blinked, but accepted that Tony most likely knew what he was talking about. "Ok. Laboratory. Your world is far less latinate than mine."

 

Tony just shrugged. "Fair enough."

 

"Anyway. You could take down S.H.I.E.L.D., right. I mean, you're smart, and you have your," Harry waved his hands around in the air, "sentient computer thing."

 

"It's called an AI. But yeah, theoretically." To give Tony credit, he barely even blinked at the odd question. "I mean I wouldn't, but absolutely JARVIS and I could."

 

"Okay, and you wouldn't because what it gives you is better than what it takes away, right."

 

"Yeah. Fury's an asshole, but he knows what he's doing, and he does it well." Tony had picked up something from the bench behind him and was slightly distracted by fiddling with it.

 

"So, how many other people could, theoretically, maybe not take down, but infiltrate S.H.I.E.L.D.?"

 

"I have no idea."

 

"What?" Harry sat up slightly so he could look at Tony properly. "Seriously?"

 

"Yeah, seriously. Look," Tony pointed the thing in his hands at Harry. "there are billions of people in the world, and that’s not counting however many magical people are in your alternate dimension thing. Now, a small portion of those people have the ability to hack into just about anywhere. The only thing is, the internet is so massive that its really impossible to know how many people there actually are on it, and if there are other people who have the skills but just haven't shown that they do. I could give you an estimate, but it would definitely be off the mark, and any list I put together would be missing people who I just don't know of."

 

Harry nodded, and leant backwards again. He had expected something like that. "Okay, but people, or organisations I guess, who have the technological ability, as well as the manpower, knowhow and desire to take down S.H.I.E.L.D.. There aren't many of them."

 

"No. But you always have to assume there is someone, because otherwise you get complacent. Or I do, because if they can take on S.H.I.E.L.D. they could also maybe take on me, and that's not something I want to let get passed me. But both me and Fury have things in place to stop that." Tony had picked up a pair of pliers and was pulling a wire out of the middle of the object.

 

"Yeah, I know that. I just… need to know how many people could do that, hypothetically, and then, I don't know. I figured some background knowledge would be useful. And it is. Sort of. I'm really just trying to figure out how major the person in S.H.I.E.L.D. is, because I know they have someone, I just can't find them. You have JARVIS doing… something, right. I think Fury mentioned it."

 

Tony had now turned back to face his bench, and was splaying out all the wires from the device on the bench, and pulling out more from a drawer. "Yeah, just a basic thing looking for leaks or hacks or whatever. It's easier for me to just let JARVIS do it 'cause he can do it 24/7."

 

Harry stood up from the stool, and walked over to clap Tony on the back. "Thanks, mate. I'll leave you to your work. And let myself out."

 

"Sure. See ya. JARVIS if we gave it a 20% power boost, but then reduced output by a quarter, would that give it the backlog we're looking for."

 

Harry smiled as he left the lab, all to used to dealing with genius focussing on solving a problem.

 

* * *

 

"Supervillains are more concerned with the Avengers or just… causing as much wanton destruction as they can."

 

Fury nodded.

 

"Terrorists have more obvious targets than an agency most people don't know exists."

 

Fury nodded again.

 

"And regular criminals are either know better than to go through with it, or too dumb to think of it. So that just leaves another rival agency, or some super powerful organisation, you've managed to piss off."

 

Fury nodded, and smiled slightly.

 

"So now could you put together a list?"

 

"Yes. I'll send someone over with it tonight."

 

* * *

 

Harry was sitting in the space in his apartment he had designated for his office. It was a modest open plan studio, but right in the middle of New York, mostly for convenience because he didn't have to worry about the price, but also because the view out over the street was incredible, and reminded him of being on a broom.

 

He had pushed a large desk right up next to the large window, and was currently standing in front of it casting a series of spells on Natasha's blood, because initial checks had shown that there was an extra substance in it.

 

It was something he had never seen before, and he had only just separated the substance from her blood the night before, and was now analysing it to see what its characteristics were. It was clearly man-made, but something that he had never seen before.

 

Some of the substance was floating in a golden bubble, a series of scans running over it, while the blood that it had been separated from was in a glass jar. Harry was holding a piece of parchment lengthwise that he had charmed to note any changes in the blood a couple of days ago. What the parchment showed was somewhat incredible. The blood had kept itself in an almost stasis while combined with whatever the substance was, changing at a rate slightly more than a third slower than normal. However, once whatever it was had been separated, the blood cells had begun to decay at the expected rate.

 

Somehow,  a scientist somewhere had managed to create something akin to the Elixir of Life, a feat that was expected to be beyond muggles capabilities forever.

 

Harry was in the process of trying to work out what exactly it was made of, and if there were any other effects than delayed aging.

 

His ears caught the click of the matchstick he had rested against his window falling to the floor, and he conjured a small mirror just in front of his elbow that he peeked at out of the corner of his eyes. "Hey, Clint. Bring that over here would you."

 

The man kept his steps silent despite having been caught, habits of a lifetime not dulling for a moment. "I like the matchstick thing. You have some magic thing preventing people from seeing it, don't you."

 

Harry smiled at the man, in greeting. "Yeah. How did you know?"

 

"'Cause I didn't see it." Of course. It was not arrogance, but simple fact. Clint was one of the best, and wouldn't be tricked by something people had been using for decades if not centuries.

 

"How old is Natasha?" Harry asked, knowing the man would leave soon, but needing to have his answers from the best available source.

 

"Ah. You found it. We weren't sure if you would."

 

"Yeah, ah. I'm not going to do anything about it, but I need to know."

 

"Ask Fury.  He has it as well."

 

Harry froze. This was something he hadn't expected. This was important, and he could not believe Fury had kept it from him.

 

"Does he. Thanks for letting me know. Please let yourself out. If you don't, or if you try to take something, my wards will kill you." Harry picked up the parchment that had just finished detailing the components of the not-so-mysterious liquid, and apparated out of his home.

 

* * *

 

Harry walked into Fury's office and slammed the piece of parchment down on his desk. "What the fuck is this, and why the fuck didn't you tell me about it?"

 

Fury looked up from the document that Harry had just covered, and slowly put his pen down. "Because you didn't need to know."

 

"I didn't need to know?! Seriously. Because from where I'm sitting this kind of thing looks like something people would, I don't know, _attempt to take down your agency for_."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this took me a little bit, but I got a bit sidetracked. If you want to read some of my attempts at porn, check out my other works. (shameless plugging, I'm sorry. #notsorry)
> 
> But yeah, plot is finally coming to a climax, sort of.
> 
> As always, tell me how great I am, and that my work is the best thing you've ever read.
> 
> xx
> 
> Whitsie


	13. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry learns a little bit and snarks a lot.

"No one has access to it except me. Even if they managed to replace Hill somehow, they still wouldn't be able to steal it."

"I don't care. Seriously, have you forgotten why you hired me. I honestly don't care about this whatever it is, beyond the fact that it seems kind of fucking important to, I don't know, everything!"

"I hired you because you were useful. Or have you forgotten that this investigation is only the latest in a line of missions? Because I haven't. I hired you, Potter, and I'll keep doing that only as long as you're actually useful."

"Seriously?! You hired me because I turned up and asked for a job. Which you know I only asked for so I could study your precious Avengers. I could have just taken what I wanted easily and you would never have been able to catch me. You would never have even known." Harry shot back, stepping away from Fury's desk and waving his arms to express his points.

"But you didn't. So now you're under my purview, on a need to know basis, just like everyone else who works in this agency."

"Well, you're going to broaden my horizons and tell me everything I want to know about this… whatever it is."

Fury stared at Harry for a moment, clearly considering something, then nodded. "It's called the Infinity Formula. Which is a bit of a misnomer because it only slows aging to a third of its natural rate, but scientists always have to come up with fancy names. It's originally Russian, that's how Romanoff has it, but she has a more advanced form than what I use because she only ever had the original dose. I need it once a year to keep my rate of aging constant. We don't know the formula, and we only have limited samples and can duplicate what we have. I was the original recipient, and so it was decided that I would continue to be the recipient. If I die the next S.H.I.E.L.D. director will be the new recipient."

"Makes sense, I guess. Keep the same person at the top for as long as possible to make sure things continue to run smoothly." Harry commented absentmindedly, concentrating on assimilating all the information he had just had dumped on him. "How can you duplicate it without the actual formula?"

"Magic. An enchantment that duplicates the original samples. Each copy lasts about two years, but the formula is only effective in the body for one year anyway, so that doesn't matter." Fury smirked wryly. "We have an unfortunate history of scientists who created important serums dying on us in this country."

Harry blinked, recognising he should know what Fury was talking about, but having no idea at all what he was referencing.

"Oh for fucks sake. Learn some history would you. You're meant to have graduated high school."

"Whatever. So this formula. Do people know S.H.I.E.L.D. has it?"

"Everyone knows I fought in World War 2. And I didn't get frozen like the Captain, so anyone can work out something is going on. But specifics are kept internal. Higher ranked agents probably have the most information, and even that's limited."

"Okay then. Good talk. Anything else you think I might need to know?" Harry asked caustically.

Fury smirked. "We're doing a seminar on wanted criminals next week, in which you feature most prominently."

Harry just glared and apparated home.

* * *

"I'm here. Just like you asked me to be." Harry said, as he dropped into the chair opposite Steve.

Steve put down the newspaper he was reading and looked up at Harry. "You're even more of an ass than Tony is, aren't you?"

Harry shrugged, taking a sip of his coffee. "I've been tortured more than Tony has."

"That's not really a justification."

"Didn't say it was. Its the truth though."

Steve shook his head slightly and huffed. "Doesn't matter. What are you going to be doing after S.H.I.E.L.D.? I mean, you mentioned sticking around for a couple of decades, presumably while you 'age', but after that?"

"I haven't really planned that far ahead. Its going to be a very different world. Why?"

"Because I don't want to be Captain America for the rest of my life. Especially if its going to be forever."

"So what, you want to make plans to hide, or leave?" Harry asked, shocked, not really expecting this to be what Steve wanted to talk about

"Not really. I'm sure I'll always want to help people, I just... don't want to be _Captain America_ for the rest of my life. I want to try being Steve Rogers again, at some point. It's a long way off either way though."

"Okay, why are you telling me this? I'm really not your favourite person."

"You and Thor are the only... immortals I know. I'm sure I'll keep seeing you around whether I want to or not. Unless you go back to your world at some point."

Harry shrugged. "Sure, I will at some point, but only for brief visits for a century or two. I did leave for a reason."

"Okay then. Anyway, Fury has this thing he wants us to do."

"Is this the actual reason you asked me here, then?"

"Yes."

"So what? A mission?"

"Yeah. Massive destruction. But he doesnt want to send a bomb to blow it up, he wants to, and this is a quote, 'scare the everloving fuck out of them.'"

Harry snickered. "Sounds like Fury. So, big boom without a bomb. I can do that. Just you and me?"

"And Thor. I'm on point, but you and Thor are the main force. I'll just be watching your backs."

Harry and Steve and Thor. Harry was sure that was an absolute coincidence that Thor and Harry were working on Steve's next op. Total happenstance. "Doesn't Thor fly?"

"With his hammer, yeah. But he'll do the whole thunder and lightning, wrath of the gods thing, smash a building then land and work with us. We've done it before, it works well." Steve said, smirking slightly.

"Sounds fun. When?"

"We'd fly out in three days."

Harry raised an eyebrow. "A mission that's actually out of the country? Fury does love me. He's had my trainee team on short easy stuff for weeks. I mean, all the rookie teams are, but its still boring as hell."

"Easy stuff means, what? Intel retrieval?"

"Nah, we're still S.H.I.E.L.D., plus we're a wet work specific team, so we're doing that, but every time they give us a brief with the whole plan outlined and they're so easy there's no way for a deviation to happen. No need for improvisation, no proper danger beyond the obvious, its dreadful."

"Maybe its because your not actually a rookie. The others might need to be eased into it."

"Nah, one is army and the other has some kind of background in organised crime. Off the cuff is something we are all used to. And our handler knows it. He says we will be upped to harder stuff soon."

Steve waved his hand, clearly not wanting to comment on the situation further. "Well if off the cuff is what you are used to, this mission should be easy for you."

"I am looking forward to it. How much time do we get after?"

"Not much. A day or two. I'm technically always on call, and you can't me missing to long. Why do you ask?"

Harry leaned back, rolling his now empty coffee cup between his hands. He wasn't sure he actually wanted to answer Steve's question, but maybe, considering the man had ever so slightly reached out to him when he first arrived he'd return the favour. "No matter what happens I'm going to be exhausted, and unlike you and Thor I'm not enhanced. Life threatening injuries heal instantly, but regular exhaustion has to be slept off."

"I don't get it. Natasha said you were the most dangerous man in the world, but you don't seem any more extraordinary than other superheros or villains."

Harry huffed. It wasn't like he was going to explain that a portion of that no longer applied with the disappearance of the Wizarding World, and thus a portion of his contacts and resources, but he needed to give Steve something. "I'm a wizard. A really talented wizard. I'm already a higher bieng than you, and add in my power, experience, wealth, inability to die as well as the respect I command in certain parts of this world... anyone going against me isn't going to come out on top. Ever."

"I don't believe you."

"Well this mission will be a learning experience for the both of us then."

* * *

Harry turned up to the private runway three days later dressed in loose sweatpants and a long-sleeved shirt, a great contrast to both Thor in his Asgardian regalia and Steve's Captain America get up.

"Are you serious? Please tell me you have something you can magic up to change into." A voice spoke from the top of the plane. Harry looked up to see Clint Barton, clearly in the middle of the pre-flight checks he and the rest of the trainees had been told about ad nauseam.

Harry looked down at himself. Shrugged. "Nah, I'm good."

"Dude, you realise that people will be aiming to kill you. Like you are walking - falling - into a battle field."

"I once turned up to a battle in my school uniform, so, you should really just take what you can get."

"I will not 'take what I can get' when someone under my command is putting their well-being at risk. Stop the joke and change." Steve barked, clearly furious.

"It's not a joke. These are bullet-proof, and people don't aim for the head, I know what I'm doing."

Steve blinked, "Bulletproof? Is it magic?"

"Yeah, a charm."

"Can you do the same for us?"

Harry blinked, surprised Steve had calmed down so quickly. "Sure, let me just..." Harry drew his wand and in a series of gestures made everything Steve was wearing as impenetrable as his own clothes.

"And Thor." Steve ordered.

"Asgardians take their battles kind of seriously. Magic doesn't have a place there. It's a point of pride."

"I thank you, Harry. I would have borne your protection, but am glad to not have to. While I respect your people's need to fight magic with magic, there is no skill in taking down a fellow warrior with tricks.

Harry rolled his eyes as he turned away. "Because a literal storm of murderous thunder and lightning is so fair." He muttered under his breath, clearly not quietly enough because he heard Clint's muffled laughter as he climbed into the plane. "Oh, shut up."

Clint gave a last chuckle, before he dropped into the plane as well, walking up to the cockpit and strapping himself in. "Slept with your handler again?"

"No, because that would be unprofessional." Harry snarks back.

"And your strongest point is definitely your professionalism."

"Just as much as yours is, I've heard."

Clint rolls his eyes. "At least half of any gossip about me is made up, you know."

"Yeah, I figured, I mean, as if you are the best marksman in the world. That'd be ridiculous."

"Hey now. Lets not take this too far. But hush while I take off."

Harry settles back into his seat, strapped in tightly. Both Thor and Steve are sitting across from him, with all their equipment along the wall next to Harry. The engine is too loud for anyone to talk for the next couple of minutes, but once they are a cruising height, Harry speaks up again.

"How long is the flight?"

"Four hours, this plane is a lot faster than anything commercial."

"Sounds good. Wake me half an hour out then." With this Harry settled back into his seat, getting comfortable, before dropping his head to his chest and falling into a light nap.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I got sexiled on Valentines, so I figured if I wasn't getting any love, I should at least dispense some, even if it is belated.
> 
> Love you loads.
> 
> Whitsie


	14. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry is a badass. Lots of people die. Then more cross-culture confusion #alliterationonpoint.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: This chapter is kinda horrifying. There are a bunch of violent deaths, and a casual disregard of those deaths, as well as some non-explicit mentions of non-ethical human experimentation so please be careful if any of this is an issue for you

With only a couple minutes until they passed over the drop site, Clint was running through their very basic plan one last time. "I'm going to drop both Harry and Steve about 80 metres off the ground, drop a bomb on that ugly-ass turret they have sticking out the top so you don't have to deal with machine gun fire from above, then spiral up and let Thor out so he can do his thing and come down to join you when he's ready. I'll fly back over in an hour and pick you up to go home, leaving a pile of rubble behind us."

"Pretty much." Harry agreed. "And I'll take left, Steve takes right and Thor comes barreling through the middle when he lands."

"Okay, everybody. We're coming up on the site now." Clint announced.

The bottom of the plane began to drop down, wind rushing in and covering any reply they might have made. Harry looked up at the screen counting down from ten, drew his wand and dropped out of the plane next to Steve the moment it changed to 'GO'. He enjoyed the wind whipping through his hair for only a moment, before circling his wand and calling " _arresto momentum_ " slowing both his and Steve's fall enough for them to land on the ground feet first without breaking any bones.

Steve and Harry stepped into place back to back, ready for the flood of men out of the base, responding to the blast of the overly large bomb Clint had dropped on the top of the building. The only reason they had been able to get as close as they did without anyone in the building noticing was because S.H.I.E.L.D. technology was leagues ahead of anyone else, apparently, and the plane was the quietest in the world.

Of course, now there was smoke pouring out of the roof, machine guns chattering out the front, and warnings blaring out of speakers throughout the building, it was doubtful that anyone was missing them.

Harry began casting before any of their opponents had a chance to fire at them. His first spell was one an American wizard had developed that created a very strong magnetic field in the ground around Harry's feet, drawing any bullets into the dirt before they had a chance to hit him. He followed this up with a _bombarda_ , that blew up ten men, an _incendio_ at a man carrying a grenade launcher, and a wide scale _reparo_ that, with a lack of objects to fix, would instead 'fix' all electronics in a 300 metre radius, to ensure no communications would get out of the base.

Just to Harry's left, Steve was bouncing his shield of multiple heads, cracking skulls, and reflecting bullets back at their owners, unerringly hitting either throats or faces in a fairly awe-inspiring display.

Harry could feel the drop in pressure signifying Thor's impending storm, the darkening of the sky only highlighting the fire whip Harry had shifted to using, slicing through wrists and guns, rendering both person and weapon useless, and around necks to cauterise the spinal cord.

A lightning strike slammed into a person only feet away from Harry, and both he and Steve sprinted for the left open doors of the base. Thor's magic (not that he called it that) was as temperamental as his personality, and often unable to be properly controlled, so Thor had warned them both to be out of the range of fire, so to speak, when he began decimating those who remained outside.

Harry cast _colloportus_ on the door as it shut behind them, ensuring none of the men outside could follow behind them, and an overpowered cutting hex around the room, bisecting each man in a strong spray of blood.

Steve turned to him, his eyes stony. "You take left."

Harry nodded, then turned down the opposite corridor to Steve. He already had a fair collection of bullets strewn around his feet, the metallic hiss of them sliding along the floor an eerie precursor to his arrival for those ahead of him.

Harry calmly unlocked the first door he came to, not flinching at the spray of bullets that came towards him, nor at the sound they made as they dug into the concrete floor. This first room was a guard room, with a bay of blank camera monitors, the next a break room, and the one after just had 12 men and a couple of desks, all of them turned up to face the door like that would hinder Harry any at all.

Harry splintered the desks into their eyes and hearts, spending perhaps 20 seconds in the room in total.

It is behind the fourth door that Harry finds what S.H.I.E.L.D. sent them here to find. A large room with still bodies on hospital beds, perhaps 50 in all, the only indication of life the myriad of wires emerging from each one, connected to bags of muggle medicine. This base had been created as a research lab, devoted to curing a multitude of muggle diseases, which would have been admirable if not for the way they went about it. They were pumping growth hormone into purposefully brain dead human clones then infecting them with a disease and testing possible cures, running through dozens of bodies a month.

Of course the moral implications didn't stop S.H.I.E.L.D. from ripping all their research from their files the day before and passing it on to the relevant department.

Harry didn't have the time to individually kill all the not-people laying in the room, and so threw in one of the timed gas bombs, and sealed the room from air escaping.

Every body would be dead in 10 minutes.

The rest of the rooms on that floor were almost identical, each having been dedicated to a specific disease, if S.H.I.E.L.D.'s intel was correct. Harry sealed the last one behind him, having opened the door only enough to throw in the gas canister, not really wanting to look into the room proper.

Stepping into the fire escape to climb up to the next floor, Harry heard bursts of gun fire, offset by Thor's occasional battle cry. Clearly the god was finished with those visible outside, and had begun working his way through the top floor of the base. Harry entered the second floor to a blaze of bullets, but this time, instead of just letting the bullets come, cast _oppugno_ to send a considerable portion of the bullets around him back at the men attacking him. Some missed, but the sheer number meant every man around him was hit in some way, wounding them enough to allow Harry to eliminate the rest with a well-placed piercing hex to the forehead.

He turned to stride down the hallway and slammed open the first door he came to, ignoring the, now customary, spray of bullets. In the room was a collection of men and women in white coats, indicating they were some of the scientists behind the inhumane experiments. Each computer had a blank screen, having been destroyed by Harry's _reparo_ , but there was a man and woman at the back of the room frantically dismantling one , presumably to try and save their data somehow.

It was a shame they would not live long enough to succeed.

Harry cast _sectumsempra_ on each man and woman, wanting them to suffer as they die. They were the worst kinds of people, in Harry's mind. The kind of people who considered the ends to justify the means, no matter the actual cost.

The sporadic gunfire that Harry had been hearing for the last hour suddenly started getting much louder, and Harry left the room of scientists just in time for Steve to sprint around the corner to the end of the hallway, three pullets slamming into the wall just behind him. He kept running towards Harry, crossing the 40 metres between them in seconds, but stopped as Harry gestured to him, watching Harry levitate a number of the bullets around him, then cast them forwards into each man who came around the corner.

"Your bulletproof thing is fantastic." Steve grinned, not even out of breath..

Harry shrugged. It _was_ nice, even if he didn't need it. "Where's Thor?"

"A bit back there, with a bunch of scientists. He's periodically electrocuting them until they die."

Harry blinked, then smiled slightly. "He had a bit of an issue with them then?"

"Yeah, so do I. But I felt death by thunder god was more traumatising than death by shield. Longer, you know."

"Fair enough. We do only have twenty minutes until Clint flies back over, though."

"Let's go and collect Thor then, and make our way outside. You're sure you got everyone?"

Harry cast _homenum_ revelio. The only signs of life were the dying clones, the odd refelction off Thor and a couple in the room around the god, some of which died as the spell reported back to Harry.

He nodded. "Definitely."

Both Harry and Steve started off at a jog, back the way Steve had come, arriving outside the room Steve indicated Thor was in within a minute. Harry recognised the scent of burning flesh, disturbing more for how it was almost entirely indistinguishable from any other meat. It wasn't a scent you forgot though.

Thor strode out when Steve called into the room, tiny sparks of lightning still spitting off of his hammer. "It is done."

They had passed back through Harry's half of the bottom floor on their way out, and Steve's eyes had widened at the, admittedly excessive, amount of blood around. Harry figured Steve was just lucky Harry hadn't used the Entrails Exploding Curse, or Steve would have lost his lunch as well.

Checking the time, Harry saw they had five minutes until Clint flew back over, so he ushered the other two out of the building, then triggered the vanishing charms he'd littered over the building. He had set them on a few of the load bearing walls and exposed beams as well as a considerable amount of the mortar between the bricks. He then summoned the very large cloth he'd conjured into place back before they had even entered the building. With a loud series of crashes the base began to fall down, slanting slightly towards them. Harry's shield charm held up, however, and so a small hill of rubble was created only a few metres in front of them. Harry then secured the cloth down on the ground in front of them. It was charmed to look like the earth beneath it, but not the rubble it was laying on. This was to ensure no one flying over would be able to find the site unless they knew exactly where it was.

Less than a minute later, Clint came to hover a couple feet above the ground just next to them, allowing Harry to lead the way back into the flight-craft.

Once they were all settled, Steve narrowed his eyes at Harry. "Why didn't you just collapse the building when we arrived?"

Harry sneered. "Because that could leave survivors to either be rescued or starve to death. One option which S.H.I.E.L.D wouldn't accept and one that my morals wouldn't."

Steve nodded, accepting the comment, and the reprimand it included. "It was very impressive. What training methods do your people have?"

"I wouldn't know. I'm completely self-taught."

From the front of the plane, Clint laughed. "That is a lie. Steve, Harry Potter taught his equivalent of special forces for about six years. While he may have taught himself a lot of what he knows, he is still very aware of how his people fight."

Steve turned to look back at Harry, an eyebrow raised.

He rolled his eyes. "It's not like it matters any more. You aren't ever going to run into a wizard anyway."

"I'm interested anyway." Steve replied.

"Well. None of our battles wold be anything like that." Harry started. "We fight magic with magic, so the tactics are fairly different. Also 90% of wizards and witches have no capability for any kind of violence. Even duelling, which is a sport, is fairly tame. It's a demonstration of skill more than anything else.

"DMLE officers are the equivalent of your police, they deal with small crime, petty criminals. Day-to-day law breaking if you will. They are taught to subdue, incarcerate, and the common counter-spells to the troubles they may encounter in going about their jobs. They can fight, certainly, but they do not expect to do that anymore than your police expect to use their guns. It happens, but every spell has to be accounted for." Harry sighed. He had never worked in the DMLE. Killing Voldemort had allowed him to skip that, but he had worked with the force occasionally, and knew what their jobs entailed.

"Aurors on the other hand, are what Clint was talking about. They are the magical equivalent of the army and your secret services. The common description of their job is 'dark wizard catchers'. They deal with big time criminals and they know how to fight, and fight to win."

"Wait." Steve interrupted. "You don't have an army?"

"No. We don't actually exist as a separate country. So I lived in Magical Great Britain, we fought in the wars our countries were a part of. That's why you ran into some of us in your War. Magicals fight magicals so muggles don't find out about us. If Britain declared war the Auror corps were incorporated in to Britain's army.

"Same principle with the British Empire. Britain took over India, for example, and with that, Magical India became a part of Magical Britain."

Steve nodded thoughtfully. "So your Aurors? They're soldiers?"

"Sort of. Our economies of scale are different. Ignoring you, most men are worth about as much as each other. Wars are fought on tactics sure, but numbers play a significant part. Comparatively, each wizard has different capabilities, Aurors are worth any one hundred regular people. A team of aurors could subdue any kind of civil rebellion. The civil war that I grew up in, the leader, Voldemort, would easily take on up to ten aurors at a time, and civilians or even DMLE officers didn't even register to him.

"Let's say wizards are like weaponry. Most people are slingshots, some people are shot guns, even fewer are machine guns, and a couple times a generation you get people like Voldemort, who are basically high-powered bombs. "

Clint snorted, clearly still listening in. "And then there's you, who, if we continue the metaphor, is an atomic bomb the size of China."

Harry shrugged. "So is Thor."

"At least he's a goddamn alien."

"My people basically live in another world, now. You could say I am too."

"Last we interacted with your people, we found you very adept. I am not sure I believe you when you say they are now merely slingshots." Thor interjected.

Harry looked across at the god, who still had faint sparks of lightning running through his hair. He didn't know how to reply, how to satisfactorily explain the cultural indoctrination that had reduced wands from weapons to, at best, household tools and the shift to light equalling pacifism and ignoring problems in hope someone else would deal with them. So he didn't. "It has been some time, Thor. We are as a whole, different people now."

Thor inclined his head. "That is true of all of Midgard."

* * *

Only two days later, Harry was standing with his S.H.I.E.L.D. team in one of the many S.H.I.E.L.D. training halls. They were apparently finished with their probationary period, and had all been called in with their handlers.

Samuel Robertson, the man in charge of the current batch of new teams, stood at the front of the room. Scattered in front of him were three teams, including Harry's own, meaning even less than the promised dozen had reached this final stage. Standing at the back of the room, clearly there for the same reason as all the teams, were two men Harry had never seen before. Harry assumed they had come to the agency through less legitimate routes.

"Alright. Line up, newbies." Robertson ordered. Harry fell into line with the other men and women, while Adrian and the other handlers went to the side of the room.

"You have all made it this far. Well done. Unlike most of your contemporaries, you have what it takes to join S.H.I.E.L.D.. I'll leave it up to you to decide if that is a good thing. Congratulations, you are now full agents."

Roberts nodded at them, and then walked out of the room.

Harry blinked, and turned to Damien who was standing next to him, similarly perplexed. "That's it?"

"Time is money I guess."

They both turned and walked over to Adrian, Christian falling in next to them as they did. "Well done." he grinned. "Come on, let's go celebrate."

* * *

Apparently 'celebrating' was going to a bar nearby and getting a fair few drinks, because here they were, a couple hours later, each having passed tipsy a while back.

"Come on Christian, cough up. Organised crime, mob shit, or were you like a drug runner who climbed the ranks. Or or orrrrrrrr, was your mom a whore or some shit?"

Christian punched Damien's arm. "My mom was not a whore, you dickhead. Why you asking me this shit anyway? Why aren't you going after wonderkid over there?" He gestured at Harry.

"Because he's next level classified. Like Avengers classified." Damien replied, not even looking at Harry.

"True." Christian bent over the table, bringing his face closer to Harry. "Come on. We're teammates. Bonds of brotherhood and all that. Tell us. Why is everyone and their mother talking about how you're banging Clint motherfucking Barton."

Harry spluttered, and coughed his drink all over the table. "What?"

Christian narrowed his eyes. "You're good. But everyone knows you slept with Adrian. What's to say you're not working your way up the ranks?"

"Hey. I slept with him before he was in charge of us." Harry shot back indignantly.

"That doesn't make it any better." Adrian said, leaning back on his chair, and taking a sip of his drink.

Harry pouted. "You're meant to be on my side."

"I thought the point was that I wasn't."

Christian and Damien laughed, and Harry cracked a grin. "Don't be a wanker."

"No but seriously. Fess up, Harry."

Harry sighed, pretending at being resigned to his fate. "Bruce Banner's like my second cousin or something. I had no idea, because I'm an orphan, and never knew my parents, but he hunted me down when he stopped running from the entire army, and that made S.H.I.E.L.D. pay attention to me. Apparently I was already on their watch list, but they figured it was best to bring me into the fold before someone else did."

Damien nodded. "So you aren't fucking Barton?"

"Ew no. He's like over 30."

"And Widow would murder you with her thighs."

"What a way to go." Christian murmured.

Harry just blinked back placidly. He honestly had no idea who either Clint or Natasha were sleeping with, if they even were, but pretending to know more than he did was never a bad idea.

"Fine. Don't tell us." Damien turned back to Christian. "Come on, Mr Bonds-of-Brotherhood. Your turn."


	15. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry gets called a slut at least twice, and vents his frustrations with lightning.

The next day, Harry woke to find all three of his team-mates strewn around his apartment. Apparently he lived the closest to the bar they were in, and none of them wanted to have to try to get home.

Harry was sure that they all thought he actually lived in Stark's tower, for some reason. Well, they can't complain about having to share his couch and bed, then, because he was drunk enough not to realise last night what they were angling for.

Either way, Harry now had to deal with three hungover men. He rolled out of bed, being careful not to pull the blankets off of Damien, who was taking up the other side. He wandered into the kitchen, checking around for any obviously magical items and hiding them in cupboards and drawers as he did so.

His fridge had bacon and eggs, and he knew there was a loaf of bread somewhere, so toast was easy too, but he just left the coffee machine that Tony had told him was necessary. He didn't drink coffee, really, he preferred tea, and so had never learnt how to use it. Harry assumed someone in his house would know how to work it. Or they would work it out if they wanted coffee.

As Harry expected, the scent of frying bacon drew his team into the kitchen, Adrian and Damien still slightly dozy, but Christian was wide awake.

Damien, as Harry had predicted, walked straight to the coffee machine, only to sigh in disappointment when he realised it was empty. "Really, dude. No coffee. What did I ever do to you?"

Harry grinned. "Nothing. I just don't know how it works."

"Seriously." Christian spun around from where he was putting bread through the toaster. "Who doesn't know how to make coffee?"

"English people, apparently." Adrian deadpanned.

"I don't have to feed you. Feel free to leave any time." Harry shot back.

"Um, no. I'm never leaving this place. How the fuck do you afford an apartment like this right in the middle of Manhattan? You on some kind of Avenger affiliated financial plan?" Christian asked.

"Or are you actually fucking Tony Stark?" Adrian interjected, before he could answer.

"What is it with you guys and accusing me of sleeping with everyone. Are you just jealous of how often I get laid?"

"Nah, I'm calling you a slut."

Harry rolled his eyes, before plating up the meal, having been keeping an eye on Christian's progress with the toast. "Dig in guys."

Adrian tapped on the table to draw attention to him before Harry and the others could start up their playful teasing again. "Now that you guys are all official agents, I'm sure you'll be ecstatic to know that our missions will be now be much more up to our own discretion."

"Thank fuck." Damien huffed.

"Yeah, I didn't like them either, but everyone has to go through it. So we have today off, but we're straight back into it the day after."

Harry smiled slightly, looking forward to these new missions. For all that he has known how to fight for over two decades now, working without his magic was pushing him to interact with the world in a different way. His team mates were growing on him as well. Harry knew he wasn't able to go through life without making connections, and between the men arrayed around his kitchen table and the Avengers, he was building some solid relationships.

* * *

It was unfortunate that becoming a legitimate agent gave Fury easier access to Harry, as there were less people concerned with what he did with his time.

"Rogers has picked up where you left off."

"Oh, good, that's why you wanted me to go to him, right?"

"I did know he'd be better at it than you."

"Piss off. You hired me because you had too. Don't try and… guilt trip me, or whatever this is."

Fury blinked once, slowly, clearly unimpressed.

"I was never trained in this kind of advanced espionage, and you know it. Do you, actually want something, or can I leave." Harry stood up, ready to go back to his team. They were growing on him, and it was nice to have a place to let loose and, if not relax, at least not be wound tight.

"He has a couple of things he would like to go over with you, as well as some more physical recon that he obviously can't do around S.H.I.E.L.D."

Harry rolled his eyes, "So now I'm not useless."

"No, you're not. Welcome to the world of advanced espionage."

* * *

Harry had been informed that Steve was down in the gym when he arrived at Tony's tower, and, not wanting to be subjected to another rant on physical impossibilities, Harry had fled as soon as he was told.

The tower was full of beautiful people, but Steve, and especially his body was above and beyond all of them except Thor. Considering that while both blonds had disliked him not long ago, only one had been driven to actually fight him, and Harry wanted to avoid that kind of dynamic in his bed.

Of course, Steve was a kind of homophobic Harry hadn't encountered since his childhood, so a quick tumble was unlikely to happen there as well. Oh well. Plenty of fish in the sea and all.

All of this didn't stop Harry from appreciating the sight offered to him by Steve, who was dead lifting weights that regular humans had no hope of moving. His topless sweaty torso was mirrored on all sides, and Harry refused to feel guilty for Steve's deep blush once he noticed Harry looking.

"What are you here for?" Steve asked, having dropped his weights into their proper place, and drawn a towel over his shoulders and chest.

"Fury said you had some stuff for me?"

"Yeah, some. I had Tash and Clint look through the conclusions we came to last time, and some of the other stuff I found, and they pointed out a whole bunch of things I couldn't have known about S.H.I.E.L.D.'s internal politics, so I have some other things to look into."

"But you can't just walk into S.H.I.E.L.D. without everyone one recognising you, right?"

Steve nodded. "Exactly. But you and your magic thing can hide me if we go wandering around at night."

"Yeah. True. But this is a spy organisation. They don't exactly run nine to five."

"J.A.R.V.I.S. is on that. He says based on patterns of behaviour, Sunday early, like 3 am, is the best time to go in."

"Wonderful. This weekend then? Four days should be enough to work out a plan for something this simple."

Steve walked across toward Harry, picking his shirt up off a bench on the way. "You busy now, or you want to come up for lunch to talk this over?"

Harry shrugged. "Sure. I'm technically meant to be 'team building' in my spare time, but acting my age for a while is a more appealing option."

"Are you planning on sticking with these guys long term?"

Pressing the button for the elevator, Harry nodded. "Yeah, as long term as these kinds of jobs are, anyway."

"And you think they won't notice that you're not aging ten years down the track?"

"There are enough meta-humans around now days that I shouldn't stand out too much. 'Don't ask, don't tell' didn't actually go away, it was just shifted to the next social issue.

"How are you finding that, by the way. I know you've been out of the ice for a while, but that kind of social change has to be a shock."

"I don't care. I've never cared. It's just different to out in the open." Steve replied, in one of the more obviously rehearsed lines Harry had heard in a while.

"Seriously? You avoided me for ages after I slept with Adrian." Harry stepped out of the lift, noticing the common floor was empty, and made his way over to the kitchen.

"No that's- It's just, you were so blatant about your sex life. You used to only talk about that with your close friends."

Pausing in his rooting around in the fridge, Harry sent a pointed look at Steve. "Wanna try that again?"

"What?"

"Come on. People have been crude about sex since the Roman's invented orgies, if not before that. Try actually telling the truth. I don't care."

Steve didn't reply for some time, enough for Harry to dig out some of the take-away Tony kept in a fridge for everyone, heat it up, and plate it for them. He pushed one of the plates over to Steve with a fork, and sat, happy to wait him out.

"You don't fit." Steve finally mumbled around a mouthful of pasta. "Like, are you the guy or the girl? I can't tell."

Harry sighed. "I'm not actually going to address that, because I grew up, and lived, mostly in my world, where gender stereotypes don't exist like they do in the muggle world. Nor does homophobia, which I do know you are being. Ask one of your other friends, or google it even. But, let me just say, who wears the pants, if there are any in the relationship, has no bearing on a couple's sex life, whether they are straight or not, and assuming otherwise is rude. Educate yourself, or don't, but don't expect your opinions to be popular."

Steve looked a bit overwhelmed at what Harry had just thrown at him. "Tell me what you really think, then. Wow. Um, sorry?"

"Apology accepted. And enough about my sex life. Tell me more about those drawings you used to sell." Harry smiled. "I saw some of them in a museum the other day, and they were very well done."

"Oh, thank you."

"Do you still do it?"

"What, draw? Yeah, it's something I do to relax, mainly though."

"There's a spell to animate drawings, if you ever want me to try that." Harry looked down to twirl his pasta around his fork, making sure not to hint that this was the whole reason he brought the topic up.

"That sounds amazing! Was all your art like that?"

"A fair amount of it, yeah. Some portraits could even talk. Back at my school, they wouldn't let people into some of the rooms without a password."

"From what you've said about it, your school sounds incredible."

"Aside from the repeated murder attempts and civil war, yeah, I guess you could say that."

Steve flinched. "Sorry."

Harry just waved it off. "No problem. I was mostly joking. But let's get down to business. This plan isn't going to write itself."

* * *

Harry had a fairly contentious relationship with Asgard's ruling family.

For all that Odin hated her, Hel had ruled over their land of the dead for millennia, and Loki and Thor had both had a strong relationship with her. Her name had been a staple of the Norse religion, and for all that the religion itself had mostly waned, she had claimed many of the descendants of her believers due to their lack of personal faith.

Of course, now Harry had claimed his title of Master of Death the various personifications of death had been assimilated into the same primordial force. However, most beings enjoyed their sentience, and to make sure that each god or deity or reluctant spirit would give in, Harry had needed to meet with them all personally. After the first few, Harry had been sick of giving explanations only to receive denials in return, or in a number of instances deadly force. That Hel was one of the last to be subsumed was only a matter of chance.

Odin had been furious that someone had acted without his authority, and as evidenced by Thor's initial reaction to Harry, had failed to disseminate any of what Harry had told him properly.

But now, in light of another true immortal on earth, Harry was trying to build his relationship with Thor, as Steve was likely to want to keep them both as friends. Not that Harry minded, really. Both of them were gorgeous and eternity was a long time to get bored.

Harry was in the lucky position of being able to use magic as a wizard, but with the force and strength of any of the 'gods' he had come across. And hadn't it been enlightening to learn that most gods were like the legends of the Norse, alien civilisations playing with the wonder of humans, as each of them had been at some point in their own history. That was not to say some myths and 'gods' hadn't just been wizards showing their powers to muggles, to be mistaken as higher beings, and that some hadn't been actual deities, in the sense that they were immortal beings of power formed from the magic of earth to watch over the earth.

But, they were all required to bow down to death, and Harry's existence was a reminder to many of the pantheons that still existed that mortality was not just a concept for some, it was an inevitability that they had to face. Not for some time, sure, and for many, the time until their demise was not even conceivable yet, but they were being reminded that it would come. Thor had actually had one of the more tempered reaction to everyone, once the dust had been cleared, but he was young by Asgardian standards, to be fair.

All of this lead to Harry's current situation, learning about channeling lightening from the god of thunder himself. Mjolnir acted as a wand did for Harry, allowing Thor to express and control his inborn talent. While Asgardian males were, as a whole, very restricted in their ability to utilise magic or _seidr_ , the ways they could, if they had any talent, were always immeasurably more powerful than any mortal wizard.

There were very few spells that dealt with lightening, because of how limited it was in its applications and half of those spells only worked at redirecting natural lightening, not creating it. Harry had never bothered to learn before but figured it couldn't hurt to expand his repertoire while he had access to an expert.

They were standing in a large empty clearing in the middle of rural America, with no one for miles, a thunderstorm boiling over their heads, and only a charm of Harry's protecting them from the rain.

Thor had explained that it was easier to learn when there was a natural reason for lightening to take advantage of first, before trying in more temperate conditions. They had now moved on to aiming at targets in the world's most deadly game of darts.

"30 points for the furthest branch." Thor crowed, having bounced a bolt off of the low hanging clouds.

Harry grinned, exhilarated. "I don't think I have any chance of catching up now, you have too much more experience than me."

"Worry not, my friend. You have centuries to try and catch up."

"True, one day!" Harry built up another bolt of lightning at the tip of his wand, aimed it, and let it release. The bolt created a recoil similar to a muggle gun and it had taken some time to get used to. Embarrassingly, Harry's want had flown backwards into his chest until he had worked out how to stop it.

"Well done. That almost hit where you needed to, but you are still trying to control it too much. Lightning never strikes twice and is as crooked as my brother's lies. Trust it to fall where it is best served, and it will serve you well."

Harry nodded. He hadn't expected to get this down in a day, and, honestly, he was happy with his current progress. A reminder that he still had much to learn was also a nice push down to earth. Dealing with muggles who posed no real danger to him had inflated his ego. Just because he thought the wizarding world was better than the muggle world didn't mean he could also think of himself as _actually_ better.

* * *

Late on Saturday night, technically Sunday morning, Harry found himself following behind a _disillusioned_ Steve under his invisibility cloak. While Harry's charm was sufficiently good enough to render Steve invisible if he didn't suddenly start sprinting, Harry had always prefered his cloak, out of both sentimentality and practicality.

Steve had assumed that Harry had to be in range to power the spell, and Harry hadn't bothered to correct him. He was interested enough in what was actually going on to want trail along.

So far, Steve had entered a few offices and rummaged through desks and filing cabinets (that Harry had unlocked), occasionally sitting down to read what he found, or taking a picture with his phone. They'd had to pause a couple of times due to people passing by, and after the first two, Steve had got over his amazement that they 'passed right by without even noticing us.'

Harry was honestly ecstatic to have passed this whole endeavour over to Steve to control. He would happily take orders now to go and find information, but directing this kind of operation had never been his forte. It was drastically different to the battles he enjoyed or even the politics he had very quickly become adept at. But now he could leave it to the experts and focus on the mission of wide-scale destruction Fury would send him on.

"Okay, we're done." Steve whispered in Harry's general direction.

Harry drew his cloak back so Steve could see his face, and nodded. They were only a 100 meters from the entrance to the fire stars they had accessed this floor with, and they made their way back there unimpeded. Leaving the building by the same stairs would be, for most people, a monumentally stupid idea, as S.H.I.E.L.D. had cameras over every inch of the alley it let out into, but Steve had assured Harry that Tony would remove all traces of magically opening doors from the recordings.

After walking out of the alley, and down a couple blocks, Harry dropped Steve's charm, and pulled his cloak off to push it into his bag.

"I'm just going to duck into a corner an go home, you're fine to get back to your tower?"

Steve flapped his hand in the direction of his home. The large 'Stark' emblazoned on the building was visible from where they were standing, and Steve would be able to walk or run it easily. "Come by and we can go over what I found in there."

"If you want, mate. Sure" Harry smiled up at Steve, having enjoyed his night for all that he didn't do much. "See you."

He then ducked into a shadow cast by two street lamps, and, after checking one last time for any one else on the street, turned on his heel and vanished.


	16. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which there is no biblical influence in Wizarding Art, and your fave OCs are at it again.

 

Life fell into a routine, as it always did, no matter if you were a school student, a prisoner, or an agent of a spy organisation most people didn't know existed. Harry was sent on missions with his team that were both more difficult and more rewarding than those they were doing while still on probation. He let Steve take control of his investigation, and occasionally went along if Steve wanted to find something he couldn't access remotely.

More often he joined Steve, Thor and occasionally Tony on the kind of missions where heavy hitting superheros was the appropriate response. Those missions had been the final jolt the two humans had needed to realise Harry wasn't the seventeen year old he looked like, and they were both finally treating him like an adult capable of making his own decisions.

"Shots on me!"

Like drinking whatever he wanted without even making a joke about it.

"Drinks are always on you Stark." Harry teased.

"Yeah but generally I can expect to get something out of it."

Harry shrugged. "I mean, if you want."

"You look like a skinny seventeen year old. Actual jailbait isn't my type."

"Fair. But seriously. Can you go get drinks please. I'm not in the mood to get carded." Harry turned back to the table, finding that Steve and Thor had found a large booth that they would easily fit into.

"How are we feeling, mates?"

"…. Good battle, my friend."

"It wasn't much of a battle, thanks to you two." Steve mumbled, playfully.

"Just because you didn't contribute anything, is no reason to not revel in our victory." Thor grinned. "I'm certainly winning our tally, after all."

"Hey, I still think the building itself should count for something." Harry slapped his hand on the table. "Red card, I say."

"Fuck off, you were the one who called for a vote." Tony dropped the tray of shots and a jug of beer on the table. "Drink up, I've told them to keep it coming."

* * *

Harry was coming to suspect that he would have to get used to waking up with people sleeping draped around his apartment. Although today it was actually only Steve lying on his couch, legs curled up against the arm rest, and his head pillowed on a massive bicep.

While Harry could have cast a charm around the kitchen to prevent sound from leaking out, it was mid-morning, and he knew Steve never liked to miss too much of his day by sleeping. So, it wasn't a surprise when a bleary super-soldier wandered into the kitchen only a minute after he had pulled a saucepan out of the cupboards.

"Eggs and bacon?"

"Sure. I eat a lot though."

'I'll put a dozen on to fry then, and you put the bacon in until you think there's enough. Juice is in the fridge." Harry waved his hand toward a cupboard. "Glasses."

He heard Steve move around the kitchen behind him, eventually to stand next to him with the pack of bacon. Harry moved out of the way to open up the pan, and Steve laid out enough rashers to cover the bottom of the enormous pan. Harry cut off another knob of butter that he scraped into the pan, the sizzle of frying food increasing for a moment.

Harry's breakfast was done soon after, so he piled it all onto his plate, and seeing that Steve had everything for his own breakfast in hand, sat down at the table to eat.

"You mentioned that you had something to show me? A couple weeks ago?"

"Hmm?"

"About how your world does art."

"Oh, right. Yeah. Let me get it after breakfast. I think you'll really like it."

"Did your world have the same kind of artistic development as we did?"

Harry had to shrug. "I don't really know honestly. I never studied it. I know we learned a lot about paint from you, but I think there was a fairly early European divergence, because a lot of stuff was inspired by the Bible, right?"

Steve nodded, having sat down at the table, placing the full saucepan in front of him on a folded tea towel. "Yeah, up until the Rennaisance and Reformation, kinda slowed it down, but until then Christian art was mostly it."

"Right, so very few wizards are Christians. We're much better a preserving things, see, so we keep around more information than muggles have, which is good sometimes, but keeps a lot of outdated opinions around too.

"But with art that means we learnt some of the same techniques, use the same tools, but it wasn't really anything until someone learned to animate portraits during your Middle Ages. Then suddenly, everyone with any money commissioned one of their whole family including the dog." Harry rolled his eyes. He meant house elves, because he'd seen too many in paintings around Grimmauld Place, but he couldn't be bothered to explain the nuance to Steve.

"Wait, animate? Like they can move?"

"Yeah, move, talk, change paintings, think for themselves somewhat. We know now they aren't really alive. But they're a good mimicry."

"So, your portraiture must be incredible. Is it lifelike?" Steve seemed to have forgotten his food, leaving his fork on his plate, and letting the rest of it cooling in the pan.

"Nah, or well, some of it is, but it was just really creepy to have basically a completely lifelike version of a dead person in your home, so painting techniques kinda moved away from that not soon after it was developed."

"Do you have any I can see?"

Harry waved Steve back down into his seat, "Eat your breakfast. I don't have any portraits, because I don't want strangers in my house, but I have a few books with animated illustration plates."

He wandered over to his bookshelf, pulling out a few of Teddy's old picture books that he learnt to read from, a modern copy of Beedle the Bard and a book on famous botanists Neville had left behind years ago that had animated, but silent, pictures of the witches and wizards, as well as some of their findings in a natural habitat.

Harry had been telling the truth when he said he didn't have any portraits, but not the reason why. He'd had a couple, Snape, Dumbledore, one of Sirius at seventeen, but he'd spent too much time talking to them, and not enough living his life that he'd removed the temptation. Harry figured in a couple of decades, or centuries, he'd bring them back, along with any portraits of his long dead friends he managed to commission or buy, but he was trying his hardest to focus on the present right now, and didn't need the distraction.

He put the books down on the table in a pile, pointing out what each one was to Steve. "Here, have a look through, take them back to your house, but don't leave them lying around. Keep them in your room or something."

"Thanks, Harry." Steve grinned up at him briefly, before turning back to Teddy's book that was open to a page with a prancing unicorn.

"No problem, return them whenever."

* * *

"See, what I don't understand-"

"Fucking what? Are you incapable of shutting up?" Damien snapped over the comm line after Christian started talking again.

"Oh, piss off. We're stuck here until the dude leaves, and by the looks of things that could be another half an hour. But, _as I was saying_ , what I don't understand is how you manage to do this so fast, Harry."

Harry rolled his eyes from where he was on his knees breaking into the apartment next door to the one they would be entering in the next hour, hopefully. "What do you mean? You're surprised I'm good at my job?"

"Nah, we're all fantastic at everything we do, but breaking into a house without the pass code, key, or, I don't know, a battering ram for the solid steel door, is pretty much impossible. I would know. But here's wonderkid five seconds later walking in like he owns the place."

Harry turned around to wink at Christian who had entered the room behind him, "Like you said, we're all fantastic at everything we do."

"Well not too fantastic, considering you can't manage to do the same thing next door."

"Oh fuck off. He's got a camera trained on the front entrance, and I'm not the one responsible for hacking."

"Leave me alone." Damien said. "I'd like to see you do better. Wait, you can't.

"Also, he's getting changed now, so actually he's ahead of schedule. We could be in an out in the next hour."

Harry and Christian went to wait near the door to the balcony they would be climbing over in the next little while, making sure to not touch any furniture, or get too close to any window.

"Ooh mate, not that tie." Damien muttered, "Not with that jacket."

Harry flicked his eyes to Christian, and saw he was pressing his lips together to stop himself from laughing or commenting.

"Colourful socks are never a good idea. This is black tie and you are not a celebrity."

Harry shut his eyes for a moment, biting his lip. Damien did this no matter where they were, and it was always funniest at the most inappropriate time.

"The invitation is where you left it, on your coffee table, no, no, turn left, turn left, there you go. Well done.

"Alright, he's leaving give it ten minutes because I wouldn't put it passed him to have forgotten something."

"Sure, we'll start setting up." Christian replied. Harry was already walking out onto the balcony, and tying the rope securely to the massive marble sculpture resting on the balcony. It was ugly, poorly designed, and completely at odds with the style of the rest of the apartment, but worked fine for what they needed, so Harry would give the owners a pass.

"Alright, you guys are good."

Christian nodded, and loosely trailed the rope between his gloved hands, "Hold on tight."

Harry winked, clipped the carabiner to his belt and jumped across to the other balcony as Christian let out the rope, but faster was better in this situation, and as he landed, he notched the carabiner back to the handrail for Christian to shimmy across.

The door into the apartment was unlocked. Only one person in the whole building actually bothered to check each night, but then again, they were 20 stories up. Harry led the way through the apartment into the office. It was terrifyingly traditional, with leather bound books along one wall, and a heavy desk opposite, but at least the desk served a purpose.

Christian nudged Harry out of the way, "My turn." Harry would never have been able to move the desk without magic, which is why two of them had entered the building in the first place.

"Who even does this anymore? This is a new building. He had to get this put in. How do you ask someone to put a safe in your floor and have them take you seriously?"

"I don't know what I have to do to teach you idiots to stop chattering while you're working, but when I work it out you're all going to do it for a week straight." Adrian cut in, from where he was supervising in Damien's hotel room.

"If you can also work out Harry's balcony fetish as well…" Christian quipped before he fell silent, all of them focusing back on their jobs.

It went fairly quickly after that, cracking the safe, taking a photo of each piece of paper in it, and then putting everything back exactly as it was.

They left the building with the rope wrapped up in Christian's gym bag, and all their collected information on the phone in Harry's back pocket. Harry was enjoying this, this S.H.I.E.L.D. thing, in the same way he'd ultimately enjoyed school. It was something so different to what he was used to, to any previous experiences he had, but it was challenging, and fun and he was good at it.

He was looking forward to sticking around for the next decade or so. Maybe he work his way up to Fury's position, make him watch Harry succeed without any way to stop it. Because he was used to magical politicians with centuries of dirt. He could deal with anything Fury threw at him.

* * *

Harry unlocked the door to his apartment with two fingers, holding a bag of groceries with the rest, and a gallon of milk in the other hand. It took him a minute to jimmy the key out of the lock, and as he was pushing the door shut he heard footsteps moving quickly towards his door, and Steve calling his name.

He poked his head back out the door. "Yeah?"

"Sorry, I thought I'd catch you before the door shut. Here are some of your books back."

Harry looked down at the bag being held out, and then to his own full hands. He knocked the door open with his foot. "Come in. You can tell me what you thought."

**Author's Note:**

> So I'm bringing this across from FFN, so some of you might recognise it. But either way, hey, hope you like.


End file.
